Making Mia
by Sasha Cameron
Summary: Mia Grey has to all appearances lived the sheltered life as beloved daughter and treasured sister. To society she is spoiled and privileged but she is harboring a secret life that her family knows nothing about and a large part of her secret is Ethan Kavanagh. This story reveals what was really going on with Mia and Ethan and why they never seemed to get it together through FSoG.
1. Mia Prologue

_**Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking  
And when she passes, each one she passes goes - ah  
When she walks, she's like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gentle  
That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ooh  
(Ooh) But I watch her so sadly, how can I tell her I love her  
Yes I would give my heart gladly,  
But each day, when she walks to the sea  
She looks straight ahead, not at me  
Tall, and tan, and young, and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking  
And when she passes, I smile - but she doesn't see (doesn't see)  
(She just doesn't see, she never sees me...) **_

_**Girl from Ipanema - Astrud Gilberto**_

* * *

Barcelona, Spain Summer 2010

She emerged from the sea like a dark angel. Except for the hair, a gaudy harsh purple, she was the most stunning creature he had ever seen, her body deeply bronzed by the Mediterranean sun. She didn't pay any attention to the people on the beach as she progressed over the hot sand towards the spot where she had placed her towel and bag. Sucking in his breath as she bent over, he hoped like hell that she wouldn't look too closely at him or the bulge forming in his shorts. His dark glasses would make it difficult for her to observe his gaze but it didn't matter. Surely she must know that the majority of males within a hundred meter radius had trained their eyes on her. He had merely become one of many.

"She won't be easy." Jean-Claude stretched out on his sun-lounger beside him.

"Tell me again what we know." The Frenchman had been his contact since he arrived in Europe two months ago. They had become fast friends but he could sense a little rivalry around this particular assignment even though Jean-Claude was already taken.

"American, the official line is she is the adopted daughter of Carrick Grey, media lawyer and Grace Trevelyan-Grey, pediatrician, Seattle, Washington. Her birth certificate lists her parents as Lena Marie Thomas of Seattle, formerly Cleveland, Ohio and Carrick Grey, formerly of Detroit, Michigan." Having dried her long shapely limbs with the towel she was now sitting on the sand applying sunscreen to her smooth, olive skin. In profile she was perfection. This was going to be a fucking nightmare.

"We presume the result of an affair." His body tensed at this. Poor kid, he knew what was coming next but he needed to hear it again.

"Lena Thomas was the housekeeper. She had been married to Linc Lincoln before they became estranged and the Grey's hired her. Less than a year after the birth she went back to him, changed her image and her name to Elena. Elena Lincoln then maintained a social friendship with Grace Trevelyan-Grey while Mia was growing up."

"And her brothers?" Of course, he didn't need to hear any of this again. He had made a point of studying her file thoroughly before she underwent the final months of her basic training but this merely added to the substantial bank of details that he already knew about her. Listening to Jean-Claude go through them again provided some distraction from her slender hands smoothing lotion from her shoulders across the tops of her breasts. Surreptitiously he reached down and adjusted himself causing Jean-Claude to laugh.

"Mia has two adopted brothers, older. Builder/Developer Elliot Grey, co-owner of Casey-Grey Construction. Her other brother…"

"Billionaire, Christian Grey. Harvard drop out and CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings formerly of Detroit, Michigan." They both went silent, watching the girl complete her task and replacing items in her bag.

"Your superiors are sure about this, about her?" Jean-Claude didn't know about their history. It was better that way.

"She's the one. Fluent in French, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Arabic, and a proficient cellist. Something of a child prodigy she graduated University of Washington with undergraduate honors degrees in maths and computer science at 17, recently completed her PhD from Stanford. She has been residing in Europe for the past six months working on classified projects. The United States Government has been supporting her in both her undergrad and postgrad work having identified her as a person of interest at an early age. Her parents have no idea about her government connections over the past six years, they merely thought she was taking some extra credit courses while completing high school. She topped her training course in martial arts and arms training in spite of never having taken part in either before. She has been groomed for this. All I have to do is babysit her and keep her out of trouble."

"Hell of a job." At that moment, Mia turned over on her stomach and took out a book. This put her directly facing him and he almost came in his pants when she lifted her head, looked over her sunglasses directly at him with those big blue eyes, gave a cheeky little wave and blew a kiss.

"Oh yeah."


	2. Ch 1 If You Can't Stand the Heat

_**Don't tell me lies  
When you talk about friends you've been doing  
It's no surprise  
To discover the tricks you've been brewing  
When you turn and run away  
Take a look at how you've given up your fantasy**_

_**And if you can't stand the heat**_  
_**Keep out of the kitchen**_  
_**If you can't stand the cold**_  
_**Don't sleep on the floor**_  
_**If you can't, if you can't bear to look**_  
_**Wonder what you're missing**_  
_**If you can't stand the heat**_  
_**If you can't stand the heat**_  
_**You're no competition**_

_**Can't stand the heat - Bucks Fizz**_

* * *

_Seattle, Summer 2004_

"_Mimi, you're late, as usual." The mock frown on her friend Lily's face seriously detracts from the image she is trying so desperately to portray. She shrugs, smiles and pops her sunglasses down her nose._

"_It's all part of my charm, darling." The girls all giggle and then make room for her on the sun loungers. At fourteen going on fifteen these young ladies are stretching beyond their reach into womanhood and today is about being cool enough to hang out while Lily's brother entertains his college buddies at the other end of the pool. _

"_Who is that?" One of the other girl's asks as a brown haired youth, bronze skin and long, lean body, somersaults into the pool. She recognizes the type, trying to show off and grab someone's attention. Lord knows, enough of her brothers' friends have tried. _

"_Ethan Kavanagh. He's a freshman at WSU." A collective gasp sounds around her as he emerges from the water, flicking his hair off his face. Then he looks directly at her and smiles and she can't bring herself to look away._

_As the party starts to wind down she finds herself standing alone by the flower garden trying to call her big brother to come pick her up. He approaches looking a little uncertain his bag slung over his shoulders. They don't say anything, but he drops the bag and takes the phone out of her hand, programs in his number before dialing his own and saving her number. She smiles. Reaching down he plucks a single flower from the garden. A lilac. He kisses the petals before handing it to her, picks up his bag and walks away._

* * *

Paris, April 2011

I hate the man. If I have to front up to this godforsaken hotel kitchen one more time and take the abuse of that tyrant I will take a potato ricer and mince his testicles. The heat coming off the gas hobs and ovens is stifling and playing havoc with my hair. My hair! Fuck! Ethan has made me go back to my natural hair color, non-descript tar. What did the hairdresser call it? Chocolate-molasses. Chocolate-molasses my ass. Oh God here comes M. Floubert again to tell me that I am doing something wrong.

"Madame. You will do me the courtesy of explaining what you have done to these pomme de terres? You have no right to abuse them so."

He grabs the knife off me and proceeds to demonstrate again what he wants. I am tempted to take the knife and pin him to a wall. All I need is to get enough basic skills so I can fool my family that I have been here in Paris training to be a chef for the last four years. The reality is that I have spent most of that time in training for the CIA. No fucking, rancid-garlic-breath, half-assed _cook_ is going to get the better of me. I study his movements for all of 30 seconds, committing the technique to memory. Grabbing the knife back from him I flip it over in my hands a couple of times before having the sheer joy of watching his jaw hit the ground as I repeat his movements faster and with more accuracy than him. I relegate three potatoes quickly to the ranks of julienned fries before rapidly stabbing it back and forth between my outstretched fingers three times ending with it sitting mere millimeters from his splayed hand. That little frisson of fear in his eyes is worth a thousand successful souffles and it takes all his will power to straighten away from the prep bench and smile at me. Prick.

"Your shift is over Madame. Be sure to be on time tomorrow." Before I can even cringe at his foul breath I hear HIM issuing his declaration.

"She won't be back tomorrow." The resonant voice of my arch nemesis echoes across the room as he walks through the kitchen space towards me. "There has been a change of plans. We need to prep to get back state side by the end of next week. The cooking classes will have to stop."

"I am not sure I have finished here. There is still so much to learn." The sweetness of my voice doesn't hide the relief of knowing that I don't have to come back here but HE already knows what a trial this has been. HE has enjoyed every moment of my discomfort, the bastard. I want him to stop his path towards me now, in fact it would have been good if he had stopped at the door but he doesn't. Instead he comes straight to me, placing his hands on my waist and pulling my body hard against his before planting a firm kiss on my mouth. Every fucking day, the same routine. Eventually, when my body is about to explode he pulls away.

"M. Floubert, my wife has enjoyed your classes very much but unfortunately my business will require us to relocate sooner than we had hoped."

"Of course, Monsieur Kavanagh. I hope that I will have the benefit of your patronage in the near future." Simpering fool. He is all sweetness for my _husband_ then he turns and looks down his nose at me. "It has been a pleasure Madame. I wish you and your guests the best of luck with your future cooking endeavors."

Ethan's hand is restraining me before I backhand the little prick. "Come darling. We have so much to do." And he manhandles me out of the kitchen.

"I don't know why I couldn't have just studied a book. Why did I have to…?" He stops dragging me down the hallway and places a finger on my lips. I wish he wouldn't do that.

"And every day you say the same thing, like a broken record. Your parents believe that you have been studying here for the past four years. If you don't go back with at least some skill in the kitchen then our cover is blown." Just for a moment he looks like he is going to lean in and kiss me again. Just for a moment I wish that he would. Then we both pull away and keep moving on down the hallway.

**ooOoo**

Back in the room, gin and tonic in hand, he debriefs me finally. It seems that while we have been flouncing around the globe creating a good enough cover for greater Seattle to accept me back into its circle without too many questions, the proverbial has been hitting the fan.

"The South-East Asian ventures are increasing. It seems that government officials are still open to corruption and our mark has been cultivating more potential markets for their product in the US. There is import growth from South America as well. The risk is that the US market is about to get flooded with product through both our southern and western gateways. Los Angeles is still the main port of entry but we also have increased traffic into Houston and Miami, and Seattle that is causing concern."

"We have known this was on the cards for months. Why the race to get back to Seattle now?" I am annoyed that he is calling all of the shots. I'm used to taking orders but for some reason being told what to do by Ethan holier-than-thou Kavanagh gets my back up like nothing else. Maybe it's because he is only four years older than me. He acts like he is so much more experienced, he pulls the age and 'time in' cards on me almost daily. Shit, I am the one with the IQ of 180.

"Partly because with all the rerouting through Asia this biggest increase has been in Seattle. The other issue is with your brother. If we are going to cultivate him then we need to move fast. It looks like someone is making moves to blackmail him and that will make him instantly a person of interest to the FBI. The agency doesn't want him getting that kind of attention." My head snaps up to look at him. He's deadly serious. Shit.

"What? Who?" Like idiot boy would know the answer to that.

"From what we have found out there are files and photographs circulating where they shouldn't. The photographs have been coming courtesy of the brother of an old friend of Elliot's. The brother's name is Danny Morris. The friend is…"

"TJ, Timothy Morris. Yeah I know him." Well, not really but if my big brothers think there is much about their lives I don't know then they are sadly mistaken. The last four years have been one massive bitch of a learning curve for me about my family. A whole heap of shit that I wish I didn't know. God I sound like Elliot sometimes.

"Right. Well, we don't know why Danny is taking the photos but they are being sent through to one of the major media outlets." He looks sheepish. That means this intel has come from his father not the agency. _What? You think I am a complete idiot?_

I stand up from the bed where I have been perched pouring through files on my iPad. My body is seizing up so I stretch to get the kinks out of my back and then I see that hungry look on his face. Jesus, I wish he wouldn't do that. I don't want to want him. Bastard has a body to die for and if he wraps me up in those strong muscular arms one more time in public I swear I will throw him up against a wall and fuck him out of my system.

We've been playing happy housewives in this Paris Hotel for the past five weeks and I swear I am going to implode with unfulfilled lust. I don't understand how I can hate him so much as a person but melt like a giddy school girl whenever he looks at me. It's the bossiness and the continual ordering me about that is giving me the shits. He doesn't outrank me. We've been in the agency for almost the same amount of time. Well he was in six months before me. It's just that some moron in corporate has put him charge of this assignment.

A knock at the door puts us on alert. Ethan immediately draws a weapon and stands behind the door. Automatically I move to the other side to take point, our movements perfectly synchronized. He signals for me to open.

"Just me." I step back with a small smile of relief. Jean-Claude. Now him I could have a serious fling with. Beautiful body with none of the arrogance and machismo. Unfortunately Jean-Claude is also very married and unlike my mother I don't poach another hen's coop. Besides I really like Angelique and she is a really good agent.

"Have you got the itineraries?" That's right, no 'hi Jean-Claude, how's the wife?" just straight to business. The guy is like a machine, one track. Except for those looks. And those I could do without.

"Oui, mes amies. Everything is booked. You have two weeks here in Paris and then Ethan you will travel through to Vancouver via Dubai then straight to Portland for your sister's graduation. Mia you will arrive two days after that flying from Paris to Seattle via Amsterdam. Only two days apart my little love birds.

That is the only thing that bugs me about JC. He assumes that Ethan and I are already doing the horizontal mambo. Just as I am about to correct him yet again a commotion erupts outside our room. Once more weapons are drawn and we go into high alert listening at the door.

"It's just the de Costas again." I whisper with a giggle. Paula and Stefan have been fighting non-stop since we arrived here. I knew them back in Seattle, they move in the same circles as my parents so I have had to make every effort not to run into them while I play happy families with Ethan. That news would be a hell of a shock to my folks. Worse than telling them I am in the CIA. However, I couldn't help wondering what all the fights were about. It didn't take me long to hack into the de Costa accounts and see what the problem was. Paula, a trust fund baby from way back has been siphoning all her funds into off-shore accounts. Which got me wondering what the hell Stefan had been up to. Turns out that there are a couple of raunchy videos circulating on the internet with Stefan and what appears to be the de Costa pool boy. Seems Paula is not very happy with this development, I would say.

"You have no right to do that. Our agreement gives me at least 15%." Stefan is yelling.

"Well, 15% of nothing is … nothing isn't it? So it seems to me that if you want to maintain this lifestyle you had better stick around and pretend to be a husband for a while longer."

"Oh, you would like that, wouldn't you. You vicious bitch."

"Honey, I just want what's mine and until I say otherwise that includes you. Now get yourself back into that room and wait until I am good and ready."

It goes quiet and then we hear what sounds like a very quiet "Yes, mistress" before the door shuts. When we are sure there is no one outside the room we all collapse into a fit of the laughter. Stefan is a rotund little maggot and the image of him naked and submissive strapped to the bed is more than any of us can take. I am laughing so hard I don't notice at first when Ethan takes my hand and then suddenly that electric shock flashes through my body. I pull away quickly and move to the other side of the room.

"Well, little ones. This is the last time I will see you for a while. It has been fun, no?" Ethan goes to shake Jean-Claude's hand and gets pulled into the other man's hug while his cheeks are soundly kissed. Then Jean-Claude quickly embraces me the same way. "Give him a chance little one. He is not so bad and he would make you a very happy woman, I think." He whispers this in my ear and then looks me in the eye to ensure that I have heard him. I look from him to Ethan. Yes, he would probably make me a very, very happy woman but then how long before I ended up exactly like my mother. And do I really want to give him an opportunity to break my heart again.


	3. Ch 2 So Good

_**I have the sketchy past, yet I have shed my wings.  
Cold turkey now, hanging by a heartstring.  
Dangle over her, above the pulsing bar.  
She tries to catch my eye, her gaze is deafening.  
What do you call a last conservatively dressed?  
With a glimmer in her eyes that screams I'm next.  
I am the greasy chump with whom she'll fall in love,  
If I'm to fall from grace, then she's my christening.**_

_**You look so good tonight, you look so good tonight.**_  
_**Break down those walls tonight, you look so good tonight.**_  
_**And when we're good and close, I think I'll steal your time.**_  
_**They can shoot on sight, but it's all right.**_  
_**You look so good tonight, you look so good tonight.**_

_**So Good - Say Anything**_

* * *

_Seattle, Fall 2004_

_Once again he is standing outside the varsity library waiting for her and once again she is late. He glances at his phone to see if she has called or sent a text but there is nothing. Turning to face the wall and wanting to kick it in frustration, he misses her approach. Her hands reach up to wrap around his eyes._

"_Guess who?" her voice a sultry whisper, lips grazing his ear sending that delightfully familiar shudder through his body. _

"_Look, lady. I don't know what you're selling but I ain't buying." He pulls her hands away from his face and turns around to wrap her in his arms. Their lips touch gently at first and they quickly increase pressure and momentum, tongues battling with pent up longing. He pulls away, grabs her hand and pulls her around the corner out of sight before kissing her again. When he releases her he hands her a lilac bloom. She smiles as she remembers. He never forgets._

"_God, I wish we didn't have to hide." She leans into his chest breathing in the scent of him with the scent of the flower. They are always linked in her mind._

"_I know babe, me too." For what seemed like the hundredth time that day he wondered what possessed him to be in this predicament. Her scholarship, her place in the university program depended on her staying squeaky clean. No parties, no alcohol, no drugs and no boyfriends. At fifteen the board had been resistant to allowing her in. Even the remarkable results from her SATs had not been enough. Finally, it was the work that she had done for the computer science department on one of their major projects that had swayed them. They brought in a team of hackers, recommended and security cleared teens known to the CIA. The others in the team were good but she had taken less than an hour to break in. The lead CI on the multi-million dollar research project insisted, with the backing of the agency and one of the major funding bodies that she be allowed to take up a fully funded scholarship. _

_They had sat her down at the first interviews and told her the rules. What they hadn't counted on was a relationship that had already blossomed over the summer the year before. He wasn't sleeping with her, no matter how much she begged. He wasn't that stupid. But giving her up, when they had put her so firmly in his world, required more strength than he could muster._

* * *

_**Paris, 2011**_

Less than fourteen days left with her and I feel like my lungs are being crushed. Every movement, every word has me salivating like her bloody lap dog and she knows it. She knows what she does to me. The last five weeks have been hell on earth and if I have to sneak off for a cold shower one more time I am going to get hypothermia. I haven't masturbated so often and so quietly since I was nineteen years old. A lesser man would just leave the mess all over the shower floor for her to step in each morning but she is always up and moving before me so I don't even get that satisfaction.

Anyone could read her file and know that she is brilliant but I never quite expected her to completely blow me away at every turn. She's smarter, she's faster, she's more lethal and she is fucking sex on legs. I can't believe that they paired us up of all the people in the world. There is no doubt that she is absolutely the best at what she does and that she is one of the few people in the world who could get Christian Grey in her back pocket. But when I saw her walking out of the water that day I was instantly back in college.

The first time I saw her I was eighteen and thought I ruled the world. She was about to turn fifteen but already a woman in almost every sense of the word. She took my breath away then but she was so young and I was such a dork. I couldn't speak to her so I spent the afternoon showing off. My sister Kate and I were serious high divers. Kate almost made the Olympic trials. So there I was, knowing better but doing somersaults into the pool anyway. I was lucky I didn't break my fucking neck. I had relegated what happened next to the annals of history. Now here she is, sharing a room with me, driving me completely nuts with her smart mouth and her sexy body.

Jean-Claude left us an hour ago and she is busy fluffing around in the bathroom. I have a good mind just to go out to dinner without her. Finally she emerges from the bathroom and I am ready to cut my own testicles off just to get some relief. Fuck me. She is wearing a tight little red dress that seems to be painted on and finishes somewhere around the base of her ass cheeks. Her dark hair is sleek and sharp, her make up perfect with dramatic smoky eyes and prostitute red lipstick. But the thing that really gets me pole vaulting around the room are the four inch fuck me black stilettos and that heady bouquet of lilac and coffee. Jesus Christ.

Smiling as she enters the room she takes one look at me and her face drops into a scowl. Now what?

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me. Why?"

"You're looking at me as if I have toilet paper stuck to my bum. Is there something wrong with this dress?"

I swallow. "No. If you can call it a dress. Are you hoping to get picked up during or after dinner?" I turn and put my watch on, quickly check my phone before putting it in my pocket and grab the key card off the dresser.

"What the hell crawled up your butt? Why is it that every man thinks that a girl in a mini skirt is a prostitute?" She's right. She looks fantastic and I am being a grade A shit just because I can't keep my dick in my pants.

"Mia, I'm sorry. I just…you just make this difficult. When you…I just can't…" Fuck now I can't even form a coherent sentence. "Look, forget it. Let's go eat."

Dinner is at Maxim's and I watch in awe as Mia scans the menu ordering our food and wine in flawless French. It is not about the language, I can speak and understand as well as she does. It is the attention to detail, the patter with the maitre d' and sommelier, matching exquisite combinations of food with wine. There is also the way that every head in the restaurant follows her as we walk in and take our seats. Everything about her is perfection, an exquisite and heady mix of vibrant naivety and calculated sophistication. If they knew that she could hack into their bank accounts from her iPhone over dinner or kill them in one of fifty ways without leaving a visible mark with her butter knife they would think twice about trying to attract her attention. As for her, she notices everything without looking at anything.

"You're staring at me like I've grown horns again." She leans over the table so that I get that delightful view of cleavage, her nipples trying desperately to pop over the bodice of her dress. Her eyes are bright, her dimpled grin cheeky and I can feel the seething rage in her voice hit me like a laser canon across the table top.

"No, I'm the one growing horns." I mumble lifting the menu up to cover my face. She pulls it down and glares at me.

"I have already ordered so I know you aren't reading. What is going on Kavanagh? You're like a bear with a sore tooth. Do I need to rip something out?" The smirk is enough to piss me off.

"Just drop it Mia. Let's have dinner." The food arrives on cue and we eat in silence except for the times that a waiter or the sommelier or maitre d' call past the table and then she is all animation and light as she flirts with them. Once we have finished coffee I throw down my napkin.

"Right, let's get back to the hotel." She looks at me as if I have gone mad.

"Oh, no. This is our last fortnight in Paris and I am not spending it locked in a hotel room. I'm going out clubbing. Every night!" Her defiance is endearing but she is out of her tiny wee mind if she thinks I am letting her loose in Paris on her own.

"We have work to do, plans to go through. We are going back to the hotel." There that told her.

"No. We have been over and over the plans and I know you have committed those damn files to memory. We can have as many conversations as you want about them during the day but the nights are mine. Tonight I want to dance." Fuck. Will this woman ever take a direct order.

"Alright. But we are both back in bed by 1am. No arguments." She sits back in her chair with a sexy little smile.

"Is that an order? Or an offer Kavanagh?" Her tongue snakes out and licks those full luscious lips and my dick jumps in my pants. Jesus Christ, why couldn't she be an ugly cow. Why does she have to be the worst type of temptation?

"It's whatever you want it to be Mia. You call it." I place both hands over hers and lean in to make my point. If she wants to tempt me then I will let her know once and for all that I am tempted. Maybe if we fuck tonight we can both move on and finish this assignment without complications.

She pulls her hands sharply back as if I have just burnt her. Not so immune after all, Grey. Unexpectedly she looks up at me with eyes that are contrite and confused. "Why do you send such mixed messages, Kavanagh? What are you hoping to achieve?"

Shit, what am I hoping to achieve? I have to keep reminding myself that she is just 22 years old. She hasn't had anything like a normal life, not just because of her upbringing but because she is something of a prodigy only most of her family didn't seem to know exactly what they had. I know that she told her mother point blank at the age of twelve that she would never learn martial arts like her brothers. Then she goes into training with the CIA and has a triple black belt in six months. Her parents think she is bright but unfocused yet she is the most focused person I know. Even my sister doesn't hold a candle to her and everyone I know is a little in awe of the tenacious Miss Kate Kavanagh.

"Mia, I know that you don't like me much. I get that. I can't help how I respond to you although I am trying. Once this is over you won't have to deal with me again I promise. Now, let's just enjoy the rest of our evening." I glance down at the bill and sign off against my credit card. I know that she is studying me and I really don't want to see that look in her eyes that says I am little more than an amoeba to her. I take out my phone to check emails just to distract myself from an answer I don't want to hear.

"You know, for one of the agency's rising star profilers you have no idea about women." Dropping the phone to my lap for a moment I look at her. What the hell does she mean by that? Psychological profiling is my thing. I was recruited into the agency after I took part in an extended study on empathic reading and body language. The trouble with Mia is she is so fucking mercurial that I defy anyone to read her. Any time I think I have worked out a tell I find I am following a red herring. She has more mood swings than a stadium full of menopausal women.

"Really. Well I can tell you now that you are a lost little girl in a woman's body. You are attracted to me but you don't want to be. You have been raised in privilege as a favored child with great promise and high expectations placed on her. This has given you the combination of social confidence and inner doubt. You are smarter than most of the collective alumni of your university and you are motivated by mystery and solving puzzles. Money doesn't do it for you but you would rather not be without it. You have always known that you are a beauty and you are confident with your body in a world where curves are not hailed as the female ideal. However, you like to subvert the accepted beauty so there is a chance that you indulge in the odd dessert on the basis that it keeps your curves rounded. It also explains why you would rather have your hair colored bright purple or orange than it's natural color and why you have three butterflies tattooed on your left shoulder and an infinity symbol on your ankle, although I suspect that one is a reward for completing your PhD at an age when most students haven't decided their undergrad major yet. You're a high achiever and a perfectionist and your perfect world was completely rocked by the news that the man you thought was your adopted father is your real father and that the woman you thought was your mother's best friend is your birth mother. You are also discovering that your brothers, whom you have hero-worshiped all of your life, don't have the perfect lives that you thought and you are concerned that the woman who raised you, who you thought was so strong and capable, is actually a doormat." _And some stupid prick broke your heart six years ago and you will never forgive him for it._

My eyes have held hers all the way through this assessment and it is only at the last minute when the tears actually well-up and threaten to fall that I realize my mistake. She looks directly at me with fire in her eyes as she dabs the moisture with her napkin, amazingly avoiding smearing her heavy eye make-up all over her face. "Fuck you, Ethan." She stands up and throws her napkin on the table storming out of the restaurant. Stunned by my own stupidity it takes a moment before I gather enough wits about me to follow her but I move fast enough to reach her on the street out the front before she has hailed a cab.

"Mia, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." My arms wrap around her and for a moment her body is stiff and resistant then she presses into me, her silent tears smearing mascara and eyeliner all over my shirt which luckily is black. We stand there for a while, me rocking her gently and stroking her back feeling like heel.

"You're a prick, Kavanagh. I hate you, you know that right?" Her husky voice filters up through my chest.

"Yeah, I know. I'm really sorry Mia. You didn't deserve that."

She lifts her head to look at me, all sultry and panda-eyed and I can't help myself. I lean in for the kiss. It starts soft at first, pleading for forgiveness for being such an ass and then I feel her mouth open to me and I can't resist. My tongue swoops in and begins to tangle. To taste the residual chocolate and Bordeaux so sweet upon her tongue. Her sultry moan enough to make me press my erection into her, hoping that she will grind back. She does and I am undone. Then I feel that power shift and without breaking the kiss her arms shoots up to signal a taxi.

Before long we are on the road heading to God only knows what club, I don't care. Her hands in my hair as she straddles my lap in the back of the car are all that I can concentrate on. Her tongue thrusting, her teeth biting, her hips grinding. Minutes later we arrive at our destination and with her usual bravado she pushes her way to the front of the line gaining us instant entry. I have no idea if they knew her or if she paid them but it seems that doors simply open for Miss Grey, wherever and whenever she wants.

The club is dark and loud. Bodies are jammed on the dance floor where she leads again, making paths open until we are at the center. Instantly her arms are around me, her forehead pressed against mine, our bodies touching from waist to thigh. Her luscious breasts light up under the fluorescent lights and it is difficult to resist the urge to bury myself in them. As with everything she does she moves like a seasoned professional, every sway of her hips calculated to make you drool. I almost can't believe that she is wrapped around me.

The crowd melts away around us until all I can see is her. Lips locked once more our kiss is bordering on pornographic and suddenly she pulls away. We dance apart for a while, me trying to match her moves but feeling happy just to watch her do her thing. She is a thousand watt light bulb illuminating the room and drawing other dancers in like moths to her very powerful flame. Soon there is a crowd around her singing and dancing as one, and she leads them, egging them on, one arm thrusting into the air as her hair sways back and forth with abandon.

Just when I think I have lost her to her people she grabs my hand and drags me off the dance floor. We are rushing up the spiral staircase and down a corridor then without any ceremony she moves past a line of people taking me with her into the ladies toilet. I try to pull back and get out of there but no one bats an eyelid when she shuts us in a cubicle. My pants present little challenge for her and without much warning her hands thrust inside my briefs stroking my cock from tip to base as she thrusts her tongue into my mouth.

Sliding her skimpy little dress up to her waist the breath is sucked out of my body when I look down and see her skimpy little red g-string. It is the work of seconds to thrust it aside and sink my fingers into her molten lava.

"Fuck, baby, you are so hot and wet. Please tell me that is for me." She laughs, throwing her head back and I sink my mouth on to her neck, sucking and licking up to her earlobe and down her jaw. Her skin is salty with the sweat from her exertions on the dance floor adding to her tantalizing taste. I can't resist sinking to my knees to get a taste of her cream. I lap at her clit, her hands gripping my head as I taste her honey. My fingers pump inside her enjoying the feeling of her building climax. She smells amazing so ripe and rich and sweet. She gasps and then her pussy pulses around my fingers, hot liquid saturating my face as I try to devour her orgasm.

Strong hands pull me up and she quickly reaches inside her bra to fish out a condom. With incredible dexterity she rips the foil and sheaths me pulling the latex down to the base of my cock. In the back of my mind I am disappointed that she is so good at this. I try not to linger on how many public fucks she has had as I move myself between her legs.

"Put your legs around my waist." I hoist her up by her ass and her long legs pull me closer. Carefully balancing her on the tip of my shaft I look at her. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I want you to fuck me. I want you to be the first." My body goes rigid, not quite believing if I have heard her correctly.

"What?"

"I want you."

"No, what else did you say." Suddenly she goes from aggressive vixen to shy virgin, peering at me from under her bangs.

"I want you to be the first." I look into her eyes and for the first time I see the tell. Fuck me. She is serious. I drop her gently to the floor, remove the condom and throw it into the toilet. My anger is building but I am trying not to let it show. A fucking virgin? Jesus Christ! Disappointment and shame are all over her body as I do my pants up and adjust her dress. She doesn't look up but I can see the tears.

"Come." Her hand is in mine and we are moving quickly back down the stairs and through the crowd. Out on the street I find a cab quickly and get us back to the hotel. We don't talk all the way and even when we get into the room I storm into the bathroom while she sits forlornly on the edge of the bed. I don't think I can speak I am so pissed off with her. Standing in front of the basin I run the water and splash it over my face. I still have a semi-hard on but that will have to wait. Turning the hot water on I grab a flannel and rinse it under the warm water then move back into the room where she is still sitting with silent tears coursing down her face.

Without speaking I squat down in front of her and lift her chin, slowly wiping the make up off her face. As I work she reaches up and pulls the fake lashes off staring at them as if they are some sort of foreign bug. I remove her shoes and then gather her up in my arms. We sit on the bed, me propped up against the headboard, her curled up in my lap. My anger has pretty much melted away. Her tears have stopped but neither of us has said a word.

"I'm sorry." Her quiet whisper breaks the silence.

"Don't. I'm sorry. I am flattered that you wanted me to be the first. I just didn't expect that."

"You scared me. You seemed so angry."

"Don't be fooled," I laugh. "I'm still angry at you. How could you throw it away like that?"

"Are you going to give me the precious gift speech? Don't bother, I've heard it before, three times in fact."

"Your brothers and your father?"

"Yep." Thinking about what I know of Christian, Elliot and Carrick Grey I can imagine what that must have been like for a girl like Mia. I am just so absolutely blown away that with all that raw sensuality, she has never…"Ethan, do you hate me?"

Just when I think I know this girl she changes direction. Why would I hate her? Why would she care? And in that moment I clearly see all of her insecurity. Fragility is not a word I would have associated with Mia Grey but I might have to revisit that evaluation. Right now, I will have to choose my words carefully. A wrong move and this girl, this woman who I am on the verge of falling in love with, who I probably never stopped loving, is going to slip through my fingers.

"Why me?" After what happened six years ago I am surprised she would even entertain the idea of me and I am worried it is just because we have been thrown together on this case.

"What?"

"You heard me. Why did you want it to be me? Was it just because you had half a bottle of wine and got all hot and sweaty on the dance floor? Or is this some kind of vendetta?"

There is a long pause while she considers her answer. Interesting. Smart-mouthed Mia, the confident super agent who hates my guts would have been quicker off the mark than this. When I hear the next words out of her mouth I smile.

"You were there. You were willing. Isn't that enough?" I wait for a few minutes. Let her try and work out why.

"You're lying." I keep my voice quiet, emotionless. I don't want to accuse her harshly and give her a reason to go off her nut at me.

"You'll never know." She wriggles in my lap and I see the moment when she feels that I am hard beneath her. She pulls away and looks in my eyes. I smile, trying to reassure her, hoping like hell it doesn't come off like a leer. "You want me now." _Of course I do. I've wanted you for eight long fucking years. That's a hell of a long time to have a hard on._

"You're here. You're willing. Isn't that enough?" I toss her words gently back to her and then bend my head to kiss her. Her lips are so sweet. Her mouth is soft, lips apart and letting me explore. This time I set the pace, keeping it slow, gentle. There is a tremor in her touch as her fingers reach for my face. She is so lovely and she doesn't even know it. I can guess at what has made her harden her heart to the world but if I have any chance with her I have to persuade her to lower her guard. To forgive.

And then I have to get past her brothers.

* * *

**A/N: As always the characters and original story belong to EL. Please consider leaving a review. I like reviews, they're very existence makes me smile and sometimes they help me to learn more about what you like or how to improve my story. I will usually try to answer you - it seems only polite. If you want the full interactive experience, please visit my blog - the link is on my profile page. Sasha xox**


	4. Ch 3 This Ain't Goodbye

**_You and I were friends from outer space  
Afraid to let go  
The only 2 who understood this place  
And as far as we know  
We were way before our time  
As bold as we were blind  
Just another perfect mistake  
Another bridge to take  
On the way of letting go,_**

_**This ain't goodbye**_  
_**This is just where love goes**_  
_**When words aren't warm enough to keep away the cold**_  
_**This ain't goodbye**_  
_**It's not where our story ends**_  
_**But I know you can't be mine, not the way you've always been**_  
_**As long as we've got time**_  
_**Then this ain't goodbye**_  
_**Oh no, this ain't goodbye**_

_**We were stars up in the sunlit sky**_  
_**No one else could see**_  
_**Neither of us ever thought to ask why**_  
_**It wasn't meant to be**_  
_**Maybe we were way too high**_  
_**To ever understand**_  
_**Maybe we were victims of all the foolish plans**_  
_**We began to devise**_

_**But this ain't goodbye**_  
_**This is just the way love goes**_  
_**When words aren't warm enough to keep away the cold.**_  
_**This ain't goodbye**_  
_**It's not where our story ends**_  
_**But I know you can't be mine**_  
_**Just like the way you've always been**_  
_**As long as we've got time,**_  
_**This ain't goodbye,**_  
_**Oh no, this ain't good bye, oh oh, oh no this ain't goodbye**_  
_**This ain't goodbye**_  
_**You and I were friends from outer space**_  
_**Afraid to let go**_  
_**The only two who understood this place**_  
_**And as far as we know**_

**_This Ain't Goodbye - Train_**

* * *

_Seattle, Spring 2005_

_The excitement rippling through her body is almost visible. She is about to turn sixteen in two days and finally he will make love to her. Any moment he will be here and they will talk about their plans for the weekend again. In the meantime, she lays back on the freshly mown grass and soaks up the first rays of sunshine for the season._

_A shadow passes over her face and she smiles, knowing it is him. Expecting him to join her on the ground she is momentarily confused by his hesitation. When she opens her eyes to look at him her smile falters as she sees the look in his eyes. _

"_Hey, what's up?" She sits up, grabbing his hand and pulls him down to her. Handing her a lilac flower, he doesn't kiss her, he doesn't smile, he barely looks at her, instead choosing to stare off into the distance. Glancing around she can't see anything that he could be looking at, just a couple of guys having coffee across the other side of the quad. Slowly he moves his focus to her face and she sees him looking at her the way he does when he is committing something to memory._

"_Mia…' He stops, almost looking like he wants to touch her and then looks up at the table again. She follows his gaze but the men are gone. They are completely alone now. "I…we shouldn't see each other any more."_

_The punch to her stomach knocks the wind out of her. "What? But we … why?" The desperation and tears are hovering and she is trying hard to hold it all back. No one has known that they were more than friends and study partners. If this is what she thinks it is then no one will ever know what this means to her now, not even him. _

"_I'm sorry…I just…can't do this any more." His head hangs in shame. "I've been offered this spot in a course on the East Coast and I have to leave in two weeks. It's an opportunity that I can't refuse and I'll be gone a couple of years. It…we…just won't work."_

"_No, you're wrong. We can do this. We can see each other in the breaks and it will all be fine." She hates sounding this desperate. What else can she do? _

"_You're so young. You don't understand how these things work. Sooner or later one of us will meet someone new and then we will hurt each other with lies. Distance relationships never work out. It will be so much better if we just make a clean break now. Who knows if one day…"_

"_You're a prick, Ethan Kavanagh. You're too scared to fight. You're letting them win. Well, you can walk away from this if you want but I will never forgive you for this. Kid yourself that you will forget me in time but I will never, ever forget you." She throws the flower down in his lap and then she was gone, so she never heard his choked whisper._

"_No, Mia, I will never forget you."_

* * *

_Paris, 2011_

Being in his arms is unbelievable. I was so sure that this was the right thing to do and so completely terrified at the same time. Six years of missing him, nine months of working with him, five weeks of sharing a suite with him and not touching, wanting him so much that I was just so angry all the time. Now finally he is here kissing me and unlike the kissing outside the restaurant or in the club this is gentle and tender, almost loving and it scares me. I didn't want to fall in love with him again. He walked away from me once before and that hurt, if he walks away again it will break me.

"Stop. Please." I move off his lap and sit on the bed not touching him or looking at him. What the hell am I going to do? "Can you give me a moment please?" He nods and I move off the bed and walk into the bathroom.

Staring in the mirror I see in my reflection that young girl who was on the brink starving for love and insecure, mixed in with the woman I am now, confident, poised and pissed off at the world for years. My mother, my real mother would be advising me to be sure, take my time. My birth mother would be encouraging me to go for it, leap in, fill my boots, you only live once. I don't want to think what my brothers would say. As for my father, I don't really give a shit. This thought galvanizes me. Ethan has always been the man I want. The one who has haunted my dreams for almost a decade. It probably won't last, nothing does. But if I protect my heart, if he never knows what it means to me then he can't hurt me. I won't let him. We will have some fun and when the assignment is over, he will move on and I will too. And maybe finally he will be out of my system.

When I walk back into the room he has stripped down to his briefs and dimmed the lights. _Shit, confident or what Kavanagh?_ He smiles and walks towards me to take my hand. His fingers push my hair behind my ear and he plays with my earlobe for a moment. I can't help but lean my face into his hand, closing my eyes to soak up the sensation of his touch. It calms me.

"I want you, Mia. I want to be the one." His choice of words causes me to open my eyes and look into his. The 'one' is different from the 'first'. _God, don't read too much into this Mia, he will break your heart._ I had done my research, I knew that he had several girlfriends over the last few years, some more serious than others. He's not a player like my brother, Elliot but he has had his fair share of women. He didn't wait for me so I must not assume that he means anything by this.

I turn around so that he can unzip my dress. His hands make slow work of it and my senses go into overdrive. He kisses my shoulders as he pushes the fabric off making me gasp. I lean my head back on his shoulder as his hands feather over my stomach. Kissing my neck in the club was amazing but this is beyond anything I have ever experienced. Every smart mouthed piece of resistance that I have come up with in the past few weeks flies out of my memory and there is only me and him, right here, right now. His hands cup my breasts and gently massage and I can't help but thrust them into his palms to ease the ache. It feels so goddamn good.

"Are you okay with this babe?" His breath is hot in my ear but sends shivers down my spine. His left hand crosses to my right breast and he wraps his right further around my waist. I look up and see us reflected in the mirror, his eyes intense and dark. "Look at yourself Mia, you are so incredibly beautiful. I want you so much and I want this to be good for you. Do you trust me?"

Making sure that he sees me I hold his gaze. "Yes, I trust you." He turns me in his arms and kisses me again.

"Come." This time it is a whisper of encouragement instead of an angry command. Leading me to the bed he pulls me down with him, gently laying me back and looking into my face. My body shakes, not out of fear but because the sensation and anticipation is almost too much. For all my research and false bravado, I feel out of my depth. "I want you to know that you can stop this at any time. Any time. Do you understand me?" I nod my head.

I have shared this suite with him, I know his body is beautiful but it is a whole different sensation having him pressed against me, skin on skin. His body is so hot which is good because my shaking is getting out of hand.

"Baby, it's okay. We don't have to do anything." His hands still on my arms and he looks into my eyes again.

"No, I'm alright. I just can't stop shaking." I give him a weak smile and the words almost don't come out without a stammer. "Please, don't stop, I don't want you to stop."

"I am so glad that you said that but nothing changes. Any time, no means no. You got it?" Once more I nod. We begin kissing again and this time I move my hands over his body just to see if I can bring some calm to mine. It begins to work and I feel the rise and fall of his chest. He breathes deeply with my touch and it gives me confidence. I press my hips up into his leg hoping that he can ease the ache between my legs. Taking the hint his hand slides down and touches me. It feels so good and I encourage him with my movement.

"Sweetheart, I want to take all of your clothes off now. Is that okay?" His gentleness touches me deeply and once more I panic. I push him away yet again.

"No."

"What?" He looks like he doesn't quite believe me.

"No means no." I can't quite believe it myself. "I can't do this."

I saved myself for him. All these years I waited for him to come back and now what? I have him here, what the hell am I waiting for? I can feel his eyes on me but I can't turn around and face him. I feel so stupid and if he makes one wise crack, one smart remark then the CIA will be hunting for a rogue agent cos I swear I will take him out.

"Don't say it and don't you dare laugh at me." There is silence. Then I feel him shift off the bed and start to put his clothes on. I don't sense any anger or frustration as he throws my dress at me.

"Get dressed Mia. We need to pack and get out of here." His voice is eerily calm which is more off-putting than if he simply made fun of me. Before I can answer he is on the phone to the airport and in fluent French he books tickets to Denmark. I look at the dress and decide to change into something more practical but he looks at me and frowns interrupting his conversation. "Wear the dress." I frown but do as he says waiting until he hangs up the phone.

"Denmark. What the hell is in Denmark that we have to leave tonight?" I refuse to pack until I know what the hell is going on. One minute we are about to make love and the next we are on some half-assed quest with the Danes. Jesus, I can't think of one reason why our assignment should take us there.

"We need to be in Denmark for three days and since we are due back in the US in a fortnight that doesn't give us much time." He continues doing up the laces on his shoes. "Come on, Grey, get your stuff together." I jump as he barks the order and for reasons I don't fully understand I am moving around the room removing all traces of myself into my suitcase.

Once we are packed he stacks the bags by the door. "Right, we need to check out then we have one more stop to make before we head to the airport. Ready?"

I nod. Either he is stark raving mad or I am. He looks nervous and I wonder what it is that I have missed. Did he get some intel somewhere in our evening that I didn't pick up on? Why are we suddenly changing all of our plans? I should know better than to question it and I do really. If he says we have to go then we do.

My mind is racing as we grab a cab outside the hotel and I am completely distracted as we race towards the Montmartre, finally pulling up outside the Moulin Rouge. He grabs my hand and pulls me to the front of the line where he has a quick conversation with the doorman before we are ushered inside. A waitress escorts us to a table in a private balcony overlooking the main stage. Champagne arrives moments after we are seated and looking around I am glad that he made me wear the dress. I wonder how long we will have to wait for our contact.

Ethan is sitting back looking at me, he fiddles restlessly with something in his pocket. I figure he must be waiting for a call. There is a lull as the stage show finishes the first act and a flurry of activity around us as patrons get up from their seats to stretch their legs. We are hidden from them for the most part behind a chiffon curtain so we can observe the movement without being seen. I keep my eyes moving trying to preempt the inevitable contact when Ethan is out of his seat and moves in front of me. I wonder what I missed when he suddenly drops to his knees.

"Mia," I wonder if he has been hit by some silent sniper as he stares down at where he has grasped my hand, "baby, I've waited so long for you. You said you would never forget and neither did I. I just hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me." My heart is pounding so loud I could start a conga line. I can't believe it. He is going to do it again. Just because I wouldn't sleep with him tonight. Fuck. I can't look at him then I feel his fingers under my chin as he tips my face. When I stare into his eyes I see all the longing and the love that I remember from college. "Marry me."

Oh dear God, he can't be serious. I pull my hand away and he grips it hard. "I mean it Mia. You have always been and will always be the one for me. I can't do this any more. I want to be with you forever, I want to sleep with you, I want a life with you, I don't ever want to have to walk away from you again. Marry me."

Now the tears come and I can barely whisper, "Yes!" as he takes a ring out of his pocket and slips it on my finger. I cry hard now as I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. I am sure that my nose is running into his mouth but it is still the most romantic moment I have ever had in my life so I hope that he can forgive me.

Finally I pull away from him and he lifts me up placing me on his knee as he sits back down and hands me my glass. We toast, "To us Mrs Kavanagh."

After I swallow my mouthful I look at him. "Why here?" We were only minutes away from the Eiffel Tower. Any other man would have dragged me up the top in the cold in my skimpy dress to propose.

"Because this was always your favorite movie. You used to hum "Come What May" endlessly whenever we studied. Used to drive me insane." I smile at the memory even though I want to smack him for the criticism.

"And now will you explain what is happening in Denmark?"

"A wedding." He says this so calm and collected that for a moment it doesn't occur to me that he means ours. Shit!

"We can't get married straight away."

"Yes we can and we will. If you think I am waiting another year for you to organize the wedding of the century then you are sadly mistaken. Eight years is long enough and we have to do this now before we head back to Seattle. I am not waiting another few months to sleep with you. There is a limit to a man's endurance and the last five weeks has pretty much exhausted that."

"Okay, that part I get. But Denmark?"

"We only have to be there for three days before we can get married as long as we have the right paperwork. And before you ask I have had the right paperwork for months now on the off chance that you might stop wanting to maim me."

"Don't we have to have permission from the agency? Our whole mission will be on the line not to mention our careers when we turn up back in Seattle in two weeks as newly weds." It is then that I notice that he isn't looking at me. "Ethan…what is going on?"

"Please don't hate me." Now what? Instead of answering I just look at him until he caves. "Alright, alright. When I was asked to take on this mission I came into it on the understanding that if I asked and you said yes they wouldn't stand in our way."

"You've had this planned for a year?" I jump off his lap and turn around to glare at him. In that way that annoys the shit out of me he sits back and waits for me to either calm down or arc up. How long has he been doing this? There is no way that I can avoid playing into his hand either way. If I know Ethan, and I do, he has assessed every possible reaction from me in the past five minutes and has a plan for each eventuality. So I stop and look at him. "How do you want to play this?"

A smile spreads across his face. "Let me see. You are going to be angry at me because you are deadly sexy when you are mad but secretly you are grateful for my foresight and for standing up to the bigwigs. You are a little in awe and touched that I have been very much in love with you for most of the past decade and that I want to marry you before I take your virginity."

"What if I hadn't stopped you?" He looks confused for a moment.

"I was counting on the fact that you would." At least I can fool him in something. "Don't worry, you have been running rings around me since you were fifteen, I wouldn't presume to know everything about you babe."

I smile. Smart ass. "So you weren't sure if I was still in love with you?"

He shakes his head. "You've been so angry for the past year that all I could do was wait and hope. I thought if I could wear you down…"

How the hell did he take me from hate-to-kill to undying love in less than 24 hours?

I reach into the glass of water in front of me and flick him. "You're a prick, Kavanagh."

He stands up and sweeps into a bow. "At your service, mam." He picks up his glass and drains it before holding out a hand to me. "Now, Miss Grey. We have a flight to catch and a Danish honeymoon to enjoy."

I stand up, pushing back my chair. "Will you sleep with me before the wedding?"

"Depends. Will you still marry me if I do?"

"Oh, I think that's a given."

"Then let the games begin."

* * *

**A/N: Before you ask, Kate and Elliot are on hiatus until Mia and Ethan have a chance to evolve. I am pretty sure that they are coming back but if not I have a couple of good one shots up my sleeve to ease the pain. As always, I am a whore for a review, so please leave a note. Who knows, if we like each other then maybe there could be virtual shots in our future. Sasha xox **

**Don't forget to check out the blog. **


	5. Ch 4 Fall For You

_**The best thing about tonight's that we're not fighting**_  
_**Could it be that we have been this way before**_  
_**I know you don't think that I am trying**_  
_**I know you're wearing thin down to the core**_

_**But hold your breath**_  
_**Because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you**_  
_**Over again**_  
_**Don't make me change my mind**_  
_**Or I won't live to see another day**_  
_**I swear it's true**_  
_**Because a girl like you is impossible to find**_  
_**You're impossible to find**_

_**This is not what I intended**_  
_**I always swore to you I'd never fall apart**_  
_**You always thought that I was stronger**_  
_**I may have failed**_  
_**But I have loved you from the start**_  
_**Oh**_

_**But hold your breath**_  
_**Because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you**_  
_**Over again**_  
_**Don't make me change my mind**_  
_**Or I won't live to see another day**_  
_**I swear it's true**_  
_**Because a girl like you is impossible to find**_  
_**It's impossible**_

_**So breathe in so deep**_  
_**Breathe me in**_  
_**I'm yours to keep**_  
_**And hold onto your words**_  
_**'Cause talk is cheap**_  
_**And remember me tonight**_  
_**When you're asleep**_

_**Because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you**_  
_**Over again**_  
_**Don't make me change my mind**_  
_**Or I won't live to see another day**_  
_**I swear it's true**_  
_**Because a girl like you is impossible to find**_  
_**Tonight will be the night that I will fall for you**_  
_**Over again**_  
_**Don't make me change my mind**_  
_**Or I won't live to see another day**_  
_**I swear it's true**_  
_**Because a girl like you is impossible to find**_  
_**You're impossible to find**_

_**Fall For You - Secondhand Serenade**_

* * *

Seattle May 2011

Three hours of complete tedium punctuated by two great speeches. That is my sister's graduation. She was amazing, but she always is. What I hadn't expected was Christian Grey. His was one of those deeply moving speeches that have the girls swooning as he endeavors to save the world one starving child at a time. I am not cynical about his motives, I was convinced that he meant it but I swear the collective creaming of the female student body and their mothers was a little overpowering in a crowded auditorium. Got to hand it to the guy, he knows his target audience.

Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport this morning but this is the first time today that I have seen Kate. She looks radiant, beautiful and I can just tell that this has to be because of some guy. I have expected to be introduced to him but instead I am given the job of babysitting Ana Steele. Ana is hot, and if I hadn't been a)so focused on work and b)so in love with Mia then I might have made a play for Miss Steele. She's a hotty but doesn't know it. Total opposite to Mia in that respect. I glance down at my hand missing the sensation of my wedding ring and wonder what she is doing right now.

* * *

Copenhagen, April 2011

"Babe, we've landed." She is sleeping soundly on my shoulder which I envy. I can never sleep on planes. It doesn't take us long to get through customs and we are soon checking into our hotel. She looks nervous and I have to admit so am I. This time will be real, the first time and I have to concentrate not to show the world just how excited I am by that prospect.

We check into the hotel and then go straight into the city center. As we go through the formalities of booking a celebrant and getting a license I am able to show off my limited but functional command of Danish. For once, Mia has to trust that I am not selling her into white slavery or promising our first born to the church. Although at times my pronunciation is so questionable that I am pretty sure I almost walk out with a dog license instead of a marriage license.

"Well, Miss Grey. We have an empty afternoon in front of us. What would you like to do?" Taking her hand in mine, lacing our fingers together, feels so good that I can't resist bringing her hand up to my mouth for a kiss. She smiles.

"Eat. I'm famished." She's not fooling me. She's nervous and this is a diversion. I can live with that. There is no need to rush. We find a small cafe and eat a leisurely meal, drinking crisp white wine and reminiscing over college.

"Are you going to tell me what really happened to make you leave?"

I lean over the table and take both her hands. "They put me into that project. I thought it was just a psyche department research team but it was them. They were evaluating me. Turns out that someone had decided we were too serious about each other and they wanted me out of the way. What they hadn't expected was that I would be of any use to them."

"Jesus. What gave them the right to do that? It was our lives!" I can see how upset she is by this but I accepted long ago that it was pointless.

"You gave them the right the moment you agreed to that scholarship."

"I was fifteen! How was I supposed to know?"

"Yeah, well that was the clever part. They got Elena to sign off. Of course, if Carrick had known what she was up to he could have fought it in court and won but you never told your parents what you were doing. Whose idea was that by the way?"

She looks sheepish. "Mine. I tried to talk to them about college but they said I was too young. When the scholarship offer came it was like the answer to my prayers. I was bored out of my tree at school. Every day they thought I was going off to high school and I guess the agency must have primed someone from the school to cover for me. How did they get Elena to cooperate?"

"You really want to know?" She nods and I consider not saying this but then so much water has gone under this particular bridge. "I can't prove it but I suspect it has to do with underage sex charges never being laid."

"Fuck! Between me and Christian there has to be gross negligence case brought against them or breech of ethics or something."

"What? And bite the hand that feeds? Come on babe. You know how they work. Which brings me to the part of our assignment that you are not going to like."

There is that feisty Grey spirit staring at me from behind her eyes and I know this is going to be a hard sell. I almost didn't agree to it myself. "When we get back State-side we have to keep our marriage a secret." She pulls her hand out from mine. I think she is going to fight me on this but then she just looks at her engagement ring sadly.

"So we only have two weeks together?"

"Come on babe, it's not like we won't see each other back in Seattle and I will find a way to be with you whenever I can."

She is very still and just for a moment I think she is going to tell me and the agency where we can stick our arrangements. Then she tilts her head to one side and smiles at me. "Well, Mr Kavanagh. If we only have two weeks together, we better make the most of it, don't you think?"

* * *

Seattle May 2011

"Well done, sis. You were awesome." As much as she irritates the crap out of me, I love my baby sister. Besides Mia, she is the one other woman in the world that really gets me. Mom thinks she does but I just humor her.

"Come on, Mom and Dad are outside talking to the Michaelsons. They're waiting to go to the marquee with you. I think they want a Kavanagh entrance." Fuck me! Kate laughs following me to the tent. Our folks are so incredibly proud of Kate and I get it. After all they never got to see me graduate, certainly not from Virginia Tech. My Dad thinks I am stalling trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and I am happy to keep feeding that illusion. Kate seems preoccupied and then I see who she is looking at. Ana is standing with her step-Dad Ray. A little way from them I see Christian Grey talking with some university bigwig. I know this is an opportunity to meet the man himself but I have to play it cool. It is Mia's job to recruit him, not mine.

"Hey, do you see Ana over there." Kate points her out like I haven't noticed her staring in their direction for the last five minutes.

"Oh yeah, wow she looks pretty hot." I have to focus on Ana so that Kate doesn't pick up my interest in her boyfriend.

"Look, she and Ray seem a bit lost and I have to go and talk to the VC. Could you go over and say hi? Just look after them until I can get there? Please, Ethan." Something is up. If I know my sister, and I do, she wants me to go run interference with Christian Grey. Well, I suppose it serves a purpose. If nothing else it might divert attention from what he might think of me when he finds out I'm his brother-in-law. That conversation is not going to be pretty.

"OK, but you owe me one Kate. Be quick." I give her a quick kiss on the cheek and move off toward them. Christian is staring daggers over my shoulder at Kate and I almost miss her little wave. What the hell are you up to Kate? She walks over and joins Christian and I can tell that they are talking about me. It's unsettling.

"Ana, how are you?" Ana gives me a sweet smile and embraces me. We catch up for a while before Kate finally brings Christian over to join us. Christian Grey is tack-spitting mad and I am pretty sure it is directed at me. He seriously thinks I am interested in his woman and I have to admit, baiting him seems like good sport right now. It will take the edge off missing Mia.

"Hello Ray." Kate makes Ray blush with a little kiss to the cheek. Then that evil spark appears in her eye. "Have you met Ana's boyfriend? Christian Grey." _Act surprised, Kavanagh, you're not meant to know about this._ Of course, we've had agents tracking their every move since they met. Kate got that interview with Grey because of the agency. They thought she might be able to find something out and I could tap her for information. I wasn't happy about duping her but it was all in a good cause, right? Then she got sick and Ana had to step in. I'd like to say that we were unaware of what happened in his office that day but we've had a bug in some local artists work that he has displayed on his wall. Of course, if the Feds knew we were illegally bugging someone like Christian Grey then there would be hell to pay.

I watch Christian in action, charming Ray, giving me and Kate the evil eye and that possessive look that he gives Ana is bordering on creepy. I know from his file he has the potential to be all kinds of crazy but I have to say that although he is very controlled and controlling I don't sense a real threat. In fact, given enough time I think I might actually like the guy. However, since he is likely to want to string me up by the balls when he discovers my relationship with Mia then I think I will steer clear of pissing him off completely. Except when it comes to Ana. I think he deserves to believe he might have some competition there.

"And this is my brother, Ethan Kavanagh," I still have my arm around Ana and by the look on his face I don't think I will just hand back his new shiny toy. For a start Ana is a nice girl and she deserves better than to be some contractual obligation. I smile at him and he smiles back in that way that says 'let the pissing contest begin'. _En garde, Grey._

"Ana, baby." And that is enough for Ana to go into submissive mode. Her body language and stance changes completely. Her demeanor is replaced by this kind of subservient compliance. Wow, I have seen this in criminal and combat relationships but never in a romantic relationship. It is quite something. I'd love to see more but then Kate drags me away.

"What the fuck was that?" Maybe Kate can tell me more.

"You just met Christian Grey, the dominant." I laugh but I know that is exactly what I have seen. Somehow I need to get someone inside Escala. Ana might need protection.

* * *

Copenhagen, April 2011

Nerves set in as soon as we close the door to our suite. I want this to be special for her but just for a moment I am at a loss as to how to begin. Shaking in the middle of the room is going to get us nowhere, she needs to relax, so I move to the bathroom and turn on the taps. The concierge has arranged candles, champagne, rose petals and bubble bath as I requested so it is the work of minutes to get the room prepared. I pour some wine and take her a glass.

"Here's mud in your eye." She lifts her glass and throws back the contents in one hit.

"Could you work with me here, Mia? I am trying to be romantic." She looks at me through the glass and then giggles.

"I'm sorry. Now that we are here I am not sure what I am supposed to do." Just keep handing me lines babe.

"You have had the talk with your mother right? I mean we aren't talking mechanics here are we cos I can draw you some diagrams…" She gets my drift and throws her arms around my neck.

"Shut up and kiss me."

"Now you're talking Miss Grey." Her lips part as I move in and once more I am entranced by the silky smoothness. So soft, so beautiful. Her tongue snakes out and licks my lips so I bite gently down and she moans. I take my time, allowing her to learn me again. It isn't like we didn't kiss in college. A lot! But this has an outcome attached to it. I figure it is worth taking our time.

"Come on. Let's take a bath." I take her hand and lead her to edge of the bath tub. Slowly I undo her blouse while she unbuttons my shirt. We strip each other silently and in perfect synchronization and I know that the process of mirroring my movements is lending her a little more calm and confidence. When we are both completely naked I touch her breasts, feeling their fullness, while her small hands outline my chest muscles. With an evil giggle she tweaks my nipples.

"Ow! Right that does it." Ignoring her squeals I pick her up and dump her in the bath making one hell of a mess of the floor. She dunks under the water and comes up with a mouthful that she sprays out over me like a fountain spurt making me jump back. "Move over wench. I'm coming in."

Once I am in the bathtub with her we calm down a bit and once again I sense her nerves. "Babe, just relax. Come here." I pull her back so that she is sitting between my legs and I wrap my arms around her.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm so nervous."

"You're nervous because this is important. Do you think I'm not nervous too?" I keep holding her close and gently rubbing her arms. My mouth is close to her ear and I know that is helping her merely by the distraction of turning her on.

"Yeah, but you're not a virgin."

"How do you know?" She tries to sit up and look at me but I hold her down. "I'm not. And I'm sorry that I'm not. I would have loved you to be the first but I wasn't a virgin when we met, you know that."

"Oh yeah, Jacinta, the airhead. I remember that bitch." Women and grudges.

"Jealous much?"

"Hated her then, hate her now. Do we have to have her in the bath tub with us?"

"No threesomes, then. Damn."

"You are kidding?"

"Absolutely. I won't share you with anyone."

"But you've slept with women in the last eight years?" I hear the uncertainty in her voice.

"Yeah, and some men."

"What?"

"Kidding!" She smacks my shoulder.

"Don't even joke." I can't help myself. She makes me laugh. "Now answer my question."

"Yes, I have slept with other women in the past eight years. Again, I am sorry. Not as many as you might imagine and certainly not as many as my file implies - yes, I know you have been studying it." Once more she gives me that look over her shoulder and I shrug. "And no, we will not have them in this bath tub either. Okay?"

"Okay. Do you love me?"

"I never stopped. Yes, I love you. Do you love me?"

"Yes." Just a whisper. "I love you Ethan Kavanagh, with all of my heart and soul. Forever."

"Good. Now turn around." She moves away from me and turns around. I pull her in until she is straddling me, her eyes widening when she feels exactly how much I love her. "I need to kiss you again."

Once more our mouths move over each other and we don't stop at the lips. Kissing every part of her skin I can reach without swallowing soapy bubbles has her relaxing her body into mine. She starts to grind against me and I swear there is enough pent up frustration that she could make me blow just by kissing. I move her back slightly and slip my fingers inside her. Even through the water I can feel her natural moisture.

"You, princess, are so fucking wet. You want to come don't you baby?" Her head is thrown back and I lean in and lick her neck. "That's it baby, let me help you. Fuck my fingers, princess."

"Ethan, I…oh God, that feels so good." She is pumping up and down on my hand and I know she is near. I latch on to her nipples and suck hard and it is enough to tip her over the edge. She screams out her pleasure which sounds so fucking amazing and then she relaxes herself against me. "You're still hard."

"You're not finished." I flick her clit again and she writhes with a gasp. "See."

"What do I do? Should we get out of the bath?"

"Do you want to?" She shakes her head.

"Okay. We can do this and it might even help you to control the pain. You do know it is going to hurt don't you?"

"I'm not twelve, Ethan. I've read the books, I think I know how it works." I kiss her.

"Alright then. I won't say a word. Off you go." There is a look of complete disbelief on her face and she pouts.

"How romantic are you?" I tilt my head looking at her. Her tongue slides out along her lip and then she bites it looking very uncertain. Suddenly she is the fifteen year old I fell in love with all those years ago.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Here, rise up on your knees. That's it. Now you are going to lower yourself down. You control how much you can take."

The head of my cock is sitting at her entrance. "Can I touch it first?"

"Sure but I warn you I'm that fucking close that I might go off and then we'll have to wait." Her hand reaches into the water between her legs and she touches the tip of my cock. Then she wraps her hand around me and strokes downward. Fuck. She does that two more times before grabbing my balls with her other hand. Her face is a study in wonder and concentration and she's biting that damn lip again. The combination is overwhelming and I have to grab her hands. "Enough. Please enough. I want you."

She kneels up out of the water and I can see her sweet pussy. Then damn me if she doesn't lick her finger like a horny schoolgirl and stroke herself. "You mean this?"

I nod my head, totally entranced by the baby voice and the cheeky wide-eyed stare. She knows exactly what she is doing. "Yeah, let me love you princess." Damn now she's made me go all husky.

Holding myself steady I grab her hip as she lowers herself down. "Oh God, Ethan that feels…oh…amazing."

I grit my teeth. "You're almost there babe. Can you feel it?" She stops suddenly and I am grateful. The feeling of her hot sheath sliding down my cock is almost too much to bear. We both take a breather. "Mia, look at me. Babe, I want you to either kiss me or my shoulder as you sink down. Don't worry about hurting me, I can take it if you can. Okay?" She looks a little scared but without taking her eyes off me she begins to move.

"Babe, are sure?"

"Yeah, I want to look at you, I want you to see me when it happens." And with that she gently moves down again and with one last push breaks the barrier. "Aarghh! Fuck!" She throws her head back and closes her eyes.

"Hold still, princess. Look at me." Her eyes come back to mine and there is a hint of a tear. My brave girl. "I promise that is as bad as it gets." She nods and once more we kiss this time allowing our bodies to reflect the movement of our lips and she moves sliding that beautiful hot silk up and down my cock. I feel her passion and she sets the pace completely taking me on a ride that I don't think I will ever forget. This woman is so full of natural sensuality and she builds us both up with her exquisite movements. Her hands hold my head as she rises up and down on my cock and I suck her breasts encouraging her with my hands on her hips. When I feel her starting to tighten around my dick I reach between us and gently massage her clit just enough to tip her over the edge. Once more she lets me hear her orgasm as she cries out and I pump mine inside her.

I want to hold myself inside her but I know that she will be sore. Very gently I help her to dismount and turn her around to sit between my legs again. Grabbing a cloth I gently wash her in an effort to help her muscles relax.

"So that's what all the fuss is about?" She's drifting. Sated.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it."

"Mmm. You're pretty good at it. I might want to do that again sometime."

"Thanks. Way to stroke the male ego, Grey."

"You didn't use a condom."

"I know you're on the pill. Would it matter if you got pregnant?"

"Inconvenient but no I think I would really love making babies with you."

"We'd have to put our exit strategy in place. The agency and babies don't play nice together."

"I can live with that." She yawns. "I just want to be with you." And the specter of the next few months hangs over us as we consider how long this case might last and how we are going to time telling our families.


	6. Ch 5 Come What May

_**Never knew I could feel like this  
Like I've never seen the sky before  
Want to vanish inside your kiss  
Everyday I love you more and more  
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings  
Telling me to give you everything  
Seasons may change winter to spring  
But I love you until the end of time**_

_**Come what may, come what may**_  
_**I will love you until my dying day**_

_**Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place**_  
_**Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace**_  
_**Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste**_  
_**It all revolves around you**_

_**And there's no mountain too high no river too wide**_  
_**Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side**_  
_**Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide**_  
_**But I love you until the end of time**_

_**Come What May - Ewen McGregor**_

* * *

_Copenhagen, April 2011_

_"__I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride." _

_At least I am wearing white, and technically I was a virgin until my husband came along. My husband. I look down at the wedding ring and fight the urge to pinch myself. I reach over and pinch Ethan instead._

_"__Ow. Minx." That's the trouble with my husband. It's like living with the Mentalist. He's got me all sewn up and analyzed that nothing I do can surprise him. I take back everything I ever said about him being an idiot. He's one of the smartest,sexiest - make that THE smartest, sexiest man I know. Oh God, my mother is going to kill me. Probably both of my mothers. _

_He smiles out at the photographer we have hired for the afternoon and says through gritted teeth, "Your father and brothers are going to lynch me."_

_Fixing the camera with a full blown Grey grin I reply, "Thank God for arms training. I think I've got your back, babe."_

_A couple we have befriended in the hotel have acted as witnesses so we take them and the photographer out to dinner and stumble back to the hotel drunk as skunks in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, Ethan and I aren't drunk, we never allow ourselves to be but we're good at this game. We say goodnight and close the door to our room._

_"__Oh thank God I can take these shoes off." I lean against the door and squeeze out of the Louboutain stilletos that I borrowed from our new friends. While they are the most exquisite things I have ever had on my feet, she is at least half a size smaller than me and I think I have blisters on my blisters._

_Ethan loosens his tie and rings down to the kitchen for a fresh pot of tea. Oh, he knows what I like. Then he throws himself down on the couch. "Come here Mrs Kavanagh. Let me rub those feet for you."_

_I stop for a moment looking around the room. Then placing my hand on my chest exclaim, "Who me? Oh, that Mrs Kavanagh." Pushing off the wall with a giggle I stumble over and land on the couch with my feet on his lap. He lifts them up and begins the most sensual, wonderful massage. I groan out my pleasure._

_"__You, Mrs Kavanagh, had better not forget it." He growls at me and I pout before taking my hair out of the french roll I have had it in all day and unbuttoning my cream silk jacket._

_"__Beautiful wedding. Did you know the bride well?" I cover my yawn but he catches it and stifles his own with a laugh._

_"__No, just some chick I picked up in Paris and shagged senseless for the past three days." He makes me laugh. All the time. I love that about him. And he fucks really well. Of course, I have nothing to compare it too but I'm feeling pretty satisfied and I am fairly sure I am holding my own in the shagging him senseless stakes. And then there is that pesky fact that he makes me want to cream my undies whenever he looks at me with his baby blues. Like he is now._

_The knock on the door interrupts that thought and a maid brings our tea in. She pours and hands us cups before leaving the room. As she gets to the door she turns, "Mr and Mrs Kavanagh. On behalf of the hotel may I say congratulations. Good night." She disappears through the door and we notice flowers and champagne have magically arrived in our room while we were out. I look at Ethan with an unspoken question before getting up and walking over to the bureau to check the cards._

_"__There is one from the hotel. This one is from the agency, from Lacy. That's sweet. And this is from Jean-Claude and Angelique. How wonderful." I gather up the smallest bouquet and inhale the sweet aroma of lilacs. Why is it that men like Jean-Claude always notice the little things about women? And part of me is a little sad that Ethan has forgotten but then he has given me so much. Then I notice a box next to the flowers. Looking around at Ethan I see him watching me carefully with a smirk. "What's this?"_

_I pick up the box and shake it gently. There is a small card attached that I carefully open. Inside the card the message reads,__ "__For my beautiful wife, I will never forget. E" Inside the box is lined in black velvet on which lies a single lilac blossom encased in resin and set in a square beveled antique gold pendant. The chain is also antique gold. I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth. When I look at him he is standing beside me and I begin to cry._

_"__Princess, please tell me they are happy tears." I hear the tremor in his voice. My smart mouth over-analyzing alpha is close to tears himself. All I can do is nod as I remove it from the box and hand it to him._

_He quickly places it around my neck as I hold my hair out of the way and I rush to the mirror to look._

_"__It's so beautiful." I whisper touching it reverently. He walks up behind and wraps his arms around me._

_"__Says she with the billionaire brother who could keep her in diamonds and pearls." He nuzzles my neck and I turn on him._

_"__Don't you dare, Ethan Kavanagh. You could be a garbage collector and I still would have married you if you asked. You know that." He has the good grace to laugh._

_"__Yes, princess, I know." I turn back to the mirror then he drops the bombshell._

_"__It's the one you threw back at me the day we broke up." My eyes fly from the pendant to his checking what he has said. I turn back to him._

_"__You're kidding. You kept it all this time?"_

_"__Yeah, well call me a girlie girl, but I pressed it. Sometimes it was the only think I had to remind me that you were real. Then when I knew I was going to be working with you I had this made. I figured it might have some sentimental value to someone." His hands are in his pockets and he is kicking the carpet._

_"__Well, who knew you were such an old romantic?" I am back looking in the mirror just so I don't start crying again. Fuck this man is overwhelming. "You know I love you right?"_

_"__Yeah, I kind of guessed when you turned up at the wedding."_

_"__Yeah, well it was touch and go for a while there." We both grin at each other._

_"__Come to bed baby. I need you."_

_"__Good, I need to be needed. You've well and truly trumped me in the romance stakes Kavanagh. All I have for you is a blow job."_

_"__Oh you are so on, Mrs K."_

* * *

Seattle, May 2011

Well, here goes nothing. I walk through to the arrivals hall at SeaTac and see him waiting. He is a stunning looking man, beautifully crafted, honed muscles, gorgeous smile, dark hair and crystal grey eyes. Shame about the massive deformity he carries around with him - that giant chip growing on top of his massive ego - but I love him just the same. When Mom said he was coming to pick me up I was a little disbelieving. The great Christian Grey lowering himself to pick someone up at the airport. I almost expected to see Taylor standing there but he appears to be quite alone and do my eyes deceive me? Happy-ish?

Someone walks past him and brushes shoulder and I see him scowl his stance changing. Right, dominant Christian is never far away. Oh well, we'll just have to knock that shit out of him.

"Christian!" I squeal in my best imitation of myself as I push my trolley over towards him before throwing myself into his arms and pushing him off balance. I know he hates this, he hates anyone touching him but I do it just the same because it just isn't normal. Not that I think normal is all that crash hot but no one should go through their whole life without physical affection. I know about the subs, I know he isn't gay, I know about this Ana Steele but I'm not sure that is affection. He hugs me back so I know we're okay.

"Hi Mia. How are you?" Then he looks past me at the trolley which is loaded up with suitcases. "Fuck, what is all that?"

"Now, now darling brother. You can't expect me to move the past four years of my life back from Paris without there being the appropriate haul of fashion and frivolity to accompany me. I've been spending all of my allowance on the wonders of France and I just couldn't leave it all behind." _What a load of tripe!_ If I could have walked through that arrivals hall with a suitbag and Glock case I would have done it but now, that would raise just a few suspicions wouldn't it? Ethan and I had gone back to Paris and actually bought more stuff to try to make it look realistic. Well, some charity will do well out of it once we can get through this assignment and begin our life together. God I miss him so much already and it's really only been two days.

Christian makes an attempt to grab the first case off the top of the pile but this unbalances my jenga tower of luggage. Everything comes piling down with a loud crash as the trolley goes one way and Christian goes another. I stifle a giggle at seeing my normally overly-coordinated brother fall flat on his ass under an assortment of Louis Vuitton. Helping him up, we make a coordinated effort to pile the cases back up again with Christian muttering about having to call in reinforcements.

"How the hell am I going to get that in the car? Shit." _Stop driving such a wanky car? I dunno!_ As expected he is on the phone to Taylor in seconds and soon someone will come and rescue my luggage. We drop it at a service desk with a card and Christian hustles me out of the airport. Two or three paps are hovering and recognize him snapping shots as we walk. I throw my arm through his and smile sweetly. Part of the plan is to firmly announce my arrival home and this is the best way I know of to do it. That should make the evening news. Christian is scowling under his aviators which is probably more about the threat of having some over eager pap snapping photos of an unusually unco-Christian Grey climbing out from under my encased lingerie than about having to escort me as I vogue to his car.

Once we are in the car and he has the requisite aria blaring through the sound system he talks again. "So how was the flight?"

And so I am forced to launch into some long winded story about the fat woman sitting next to me who was reading some book that has hit the best sellers list that has been labeled 'Mommy Porn' and insisted on telling me all about how I should read it. I would have wanted to tell her I was living it but then I didn't really sit next to a fat woman and I spoke to no one except the steward. After I have made him laugh with that story I move on to how the air is different in Seattle than Paris and how nice it is to be home and how I won't miss dodging dog pooh on the pavements - which I won't. If I haven't exhausted him by the time we arrive in Bellevue then I have exhausted myself.

My mother comes running out to the car as we sweep up the driveway tears in her eyes. We hug and cry and walk up to the front door. My father is standing at the bottom of the stairs looking uncertain. Not sure I care but I will keep up the pretense. Can't possibly have Christian see the chinks in this perfect little family scene now can we. I hug Dad and kiss him but once Christian has moved past us and into the house I pull away without another word.

Mom has this little bit of nostalgia going on where she keeps our bedrooms exactly as they were when we moved out and I am both comforted and mortified by the giant Justin Timberlake poster hanging over my bed. That has got to go although Ethan has a kind of JT vibe to him. Maybe he can stay until my hubby can come and replace him. On that thought I rush to my phone and check for messages. I text to tell him I have arrived and he immediately messages back with an x. Then I check my gun and my vibrator in that order. Not that I think I will need the gun but the vibrator, now that is essential unless I can find some time to Skype Ethan privately later on. Once I run out of things to check I go downstairs.

"So my darling, how was your flight." Oh crap, here we go again. I give Christian a big cheesy grin and he rolls his eyes at me as I launch into my story again. I have rehearsed it so much in my head that it comes tripping off my tongue and I am pretty sure that I haven't changed any details. If I have Christian doesn't notice. All good. After an hour of chewing the fat, Christian excuses himself and Mom and I take our tea out to the back patio.

"I missed this place Mom. I missed you." She leans over and pats my hand.

"I missed you too, darling. You have no idea how much." Oh Mom, I think I do. After three months of working together Ethan had a go at me about how many times in a week my Mom phoned me. Given that half the time I was in another country it was costing the agency a fortune to reroute her calls through the Paris exchange. I told him it was a small price to pay for National Security which made him laugh but his supervisor was still pissed. I mean seriously.

"So what has been happening around here?" My mother sips her tea and looks wistfully out to the water.

"Nothing much really. The boys are so busy that we hardly see them unless we run into them at some social event. Elliot still makes the gossip rags on a daily basis it seems. I do wish that he would settle down for a while. And Christian works far too hard. Most of the time if I want to see him I have to storm the tower." We laugh at the reference to Escala. It certainly has become that over the years. I would worry at his social skills except that he is freaky like Ethan. He can just read people so quickly. "And you, what do you think you might do now that you are back? Do you have any restaurant jobs lined up?"

Ugh, I couldn't think of anything worse. "Event management." That one just popped in out of nowhere but it kind of fits. "Yeah, having worked in the hotel I saw a lot of really awful events and I think that is something that I could do really well. I have the contacts, I have the hospitality training, I can talk the language. And I like bossing people around." The more I talk about it the more I convince myself that this is the job for me. Of course, the reality is that with my training I might be dangerous as an event manager. Ethan would be laughing his breakfast up if he heard me spinning this tale right now.

"So were there any special boys in Paris?" Oh yes, there was this one guy.

"No, I went out with lots of people but no one special." My hand goes to the necklace and I try not to show any emotion.

"Well, we shall just have to do something about that. You know that Sean has been asking after you. You should at least ask him to the gala." _Oh crap, that's coming up isn't it?_ And the thought of seeing Sean gives me hives but I guess if I take a date that I know well there will be some safety in that.

"Great, I will call him in a day or two." Ethan is going to kill him. I'll have to wear a wire all night so that he can be confident that no one is hitting on me. Of course, I will have to wear a wire anyway. I really must have a look at my wardrobe and see what is going to work.

"Come, I want to get some preparation done for tonight. The boys are both going to be here for dinner. You can show me some of your tricks of the trade." Double crap. Well, fake it till you make it. Hopefully, Mom will be so blinded by my knife skills that she won't notice when I burn the water. We get a couple of things organized and then I claim fatigue and go back upstairs to my room. I open my laptop and start checking through the surveillance logs from Christian's office. I need to get into Escala as soon a possible. There have been a couple of attempts at getting equipment in there but the place is like Fort Knox and Taylor's team manages to thwart every attempt. I will have to do it myself. I don't particularly like the idea of spying on my brother but it is what I do. And in the end Ethan and I are convinced that he is clean. What we need is to find a reason compelling enough to recruit him as an informant. Something he will be unable to refuse.

* * *

"Hey, baby girl, how was your flight?" Shit, Elliot. In an effort to conceal the laptop I swing around quickly and stand up. This has the effect of knocking a couple of the pillows into a strategic position covering the computer.

"Elliot, so great to see you." I give him the big grin trying to divert his attention. "You look wonderful. Different. What's going on?" He looks so….happy.

"I need to ask you a favor." _This is not like you Elliot._

"Okay, Lelliot. Shoot." I deliberately use his nick name completely forgetting that he and Christian have made an attempt to give me a nick name since I 'moved to France'. Pointless really when I spent so little of my time there but sweet all the same.

"Look Coco, I know this is your first night back and you probably were looking forward to a quiet family dinner but ... I need you to convince Mom to invite Christian's new girlfriend." Fuck, he called Ana Christian's girlfriend. Now that is interesting. We knew the relationship had started differently but all evidence pointed to it being another sub arrangement. Well, well, well. No wonder Christian was so different when he picked me up. I wonder if he is with her now.

"I knew it." I smack him on the chest in the expected girlie girl manner. Shit, I must have hit too hard cos he rubs the spot. Tone it down, Mia. "I knew he was keeping something from me. Damn. Christian really has a girlfriend?" To my horror I notice that the laptop has shifted and is about to drop off the end of the bed. I quickly back up and plop myself down pretending to be shocked by the news while I surreptitiously retrieve the errant hardware. Luckily Elliot sits down heavily beside me and that is enough to shift it back into place underneath the pillows.

"Yeah, only I am not sure that he knows that is what he has." WTF? To paraphrase Yoda, he either has or has not. There is no in between. "I think he needs a little push." Mmm, push is my specialty area.

"I see. So you think bringing her to dinner tonight, and introducing her to Mom and Dad will force him to admit it."

"Well, technically she has already met Mom but yeah, that is the general idea." Fuck. So much for the heart to heart Mom. Storm the fortress, she says. I bet.

"Mom knows and she didn't tell me?" I am not sure what Mom thinks she knows but lets just play this out to its logical conclusion, shall we?

"I wouldn't take it personally. I think Mom doesn't want to jinx it. Which is why we need to get her to invite Ana tonight. But I wanted to check with you first. It is your night after all." A small beep comes from underneath the pillows, the sound of an unhappy battery. Luckily Elliot didn't notice.

"Oh, Elliot, of course. Let's go talk to her." I push him out of my room and down the stairs. We locate Mom in the kitchen arranging flowers.

"Mom, we have a request for dinner." I lean over the counter and steal a grape from the platter Mom has half prepared for tonight. I think I could eat a horse so these could be gone by 7pm. "Can you call Christian and invite Ana, is that her name Elliot? Yes, invite Ana to dinner tonight for my welcome home. Please." Luckily the agency hasn't completely trained the whine out of me. As Ethan can attest to. I discovered that if I go into my whiney little school girl pout he will put me over his knee as soon as look at me. It's really hot.

Mom stares at me with her mouth open then glares at Elliot. "Elliot, what is going on? Why are you two plotting against your brother?" Just when I think we are about to lose this argument Elliot does the unthinkable. Confesses.

"Mom, hear me out." He takes a deep breath. "I've met someone. Someone I really care about. In fact, I am going away with her and family for a holiday next week." Shit, he is going to Barbados with Ethan. How can I get an invite on that trip? Two weeks without him is going to be hell. "Her name is Kate and I met her through Christian. She is Ana's flatmate. Which is why I need you to invite Ana tonight, Mom. Kate and I are going away on Tuesday and I want you to meet her before we go. I just know that she will feel better if Ana is here, after all Ana and Christian met first. Kate just thinks its weird that she would meet you guys before Ana does." Well, fuck me, my brother has turned into a girl.

"Oh. My. God. Elliot," I shriek, "you didn't mention a Kate. I thought this was about Christian. When...how did you meet her? What does she do? How serious is this? When were you going to tell me? No wait. I knew there was something up with you. Damn you're good. Throwing me off the scent like that." Don't you out girl the girl, girlfriend.

"As I said, Kate is Ana's flatmate. She was meant to interview Christian for the college paper which she edited up until graduation last week. Only she got sick and sent Ana which is how Christian met her first. Christian roped me in to help him get some time alone with Ana by looking after Kate and well..." I do that thing where I lean on my hand and gaze up at him. And just like a big tippy jug he spills. "Kate has a degree in literature and professional writing, she is starting her internship at Kavanagh Media when she returns from Barbados. She is smart, funny, beautiful and well...I really like her. A lot."

Sometimes men are just too easy. "Mom, I think your boy is _in-lurve_." I wink at him and fuck me sideways if he doesn't blush.

"Mia don't tease your brother." Mom walks around the bench and wraps him in a big hug. "I can't believe this. Both my boys.I can't tell you how happy I am for you darling." Mom is just about in tears and Elliot glares at me over her shoulder. Well, I could make your day Mom and tell you I'm MARRIED! But that will have to wait for another day.

Poor Christian, within moments he has been blindsided by Mom's phone call and Elliot looks like the cat that got the cream. Can't wait for this night to play out.


	7. Ch 6 I Can't Stand the Rain

_**I can't stand the rain**_  
_**Against my window**_  
_**Bringing back sweet memories**_  
_**I can't stand the rain**_  
_**Against my window**_  
_**'cause he ain't here with me**_

_**Hey window pane**_  
_**Tell me do you remember**_  
_**How sweet it used to be**_  
_**When we were together**_  
_**Everything was so grand**_  
_**Now that we've parted**_  
_**There's just one sound that I just can't stand**_

_**I can't stand the rain**_  
_**Against my window**_  
_**Bringing back sweet memories**_  
_**I can't stand the rain**_  
_**Against my window**_  
_**'cause he ain't here with me**_

_**When we were together**_  
_**Everything was so grand**_  
_**Now that we've parted**_  
_**There's just one sound that I just can't stand**_

_**I Can't Stand the Rain - Seal**_

* * *

_Seattle 2005_

_He stood by the window of the psyche lab and watched her progress across the quad below. Surrounded by a small group of her peers she gives every appearance of being happy and part of the group but he can see the slightly stooped carriage, the half-smile that never quite reaches her eyes. She looks thin but is still the most stunning creature that he has ever seen. Disgust fills him as he acknowledges to himself that he is the architect of her sadness. Tempted beyond all sane thinking to rush down and be at her side he turns away from the window at the very moment that she glances up._

"_You know that you can't make contact with her again." Professor Duncan approaches him as she flicked through some paperwork on her clipboard. "If you do they will make good on their promise and remove her from the program."_

_Ethan turned his attention to the data analysis he was running. "I know. I know what this means to her and I would never do anything to jeopardize that."_

"_But the heart wants what the heart wants." The professor gave a sad smile and he wondered what it was that she had given up to be here. "Perhaps it will be easier when you ship out to Virginia. Distance can be an antidote."_

"_Or its own form of hell." The professor dropped her hand on his shoulder for a moment of solidarity then moved to the other side of the lab leaving him with his thoughts. He turned back to the window in time to see her moving through to the Computer Science building. Placing his hands on the window he resisted the temptation to break the glass and call out to her. To tell her everything that he felt in his heart. As she disappeared from sight the rain began to fall outside and he pulled his hands away sharply as he fought to hold back his own impotent tears._

* * *

Seattle 2011

I am trying desperately to keep busy but I miss her so much and I know that we have a long break ahead of us. _One text message in two days! Shit! I'm going out of my mind!_ I know that she is safely at Bellevue but quite frankly I don't think I can wait another day to see her. I've analyzed video surveillance footage until it is coming out my ears. I've made a list of possible marks to investigate and profile and I have downloaded all of the data that Mia has sent through this morning from hacking into her Dad's computer. My wife is a threat to National Security all on her own. I can see that I will have to hide her out on a desert island once this is over and of course, just the thought of that has me pole vaulting around the safe house.

The agency has set us up with a safe house, a converted office space located in the International District, close to the port. Close enough to access everything we need but remote enough that we shouldn't run into anyone we know. However, to keep our cover active we are both supposed to stay with our respective parents, at least until I officially move into the condo with Kate. The worst part of all of this is that my parents live in Bellevue. I am only minutes away from Mia and I can't go and see her. It's fucking killing me. I can't wait to get this fucking Barbados shit out of the way so Kate can finally introduce me to Elliot's sister then Mia and I can spend some legit time together.

By late afternoon I am climbing the walls of my bedroom. I go downstairs and let Mom know that I am going for a run.

"Is anything wrong, Ethan?" Mom is cutting an apple at the sink and snacking on it. I visualize taking that knife and throwing it through a wall. Or better yet, watching Mia do it. Aarghh!

"No, I'm fine. Just a bit restless, for some reason."

"Does this have anything to do with a girl?" Don't start Mom. Please. I don't answer, just give her a look that says discussion over. She laughs and turns back to the sink. "Dinner is at 7."

I can't help myself. As a soft drizzling rain descends, I start running around the lake path knowing that it is going to take me in direct line with Mia's house eventually. I stop at a point where I can see their private pier and the boathouse. The public path cuts along the bottom of their garden and the temptation is just too much. I stop in the trees out of sight, take out my phone and start typing.

_'Hey babe, I'm here.'_

After waiting for ten minutes I haven't got a reply so I send it again. Another ten and nothing. This time I dial and it goes straight to voicemail. _Fuck!_ She has switched off her phone. _That's it._ I make my way up the side of the house, trying not to be seen. Luckily there doesn't seem to be anyone around in the back of the house. I dodge from tree to tree making my approach. A commando roll takes me behind what looks like a garden shed. Then staying low I crawl through to the back of the pool house. I almost get caught by some sort of housekeeper. A blond woman with her hair in ponytails.

Most of these older houses are laid out the same, so even if I didn't already have an intimate knowledge of where Mia's bedroom was, I would know that the bedrooms are on the second level running down this side. Using the spouting I begin to climb and I am almost at the roof of the side veranda when the spouting turns into a slip and slide. The wet metal causes my hands to lose purchase and I crash into the garden below winding myself. Lying there trying to catch my breath I see a window open and I try to roll into the bushes to the side of me but there is a sharp branch sticking out and it stabs me in the leg.

"Fuck! Jesus! Shit!" The searing pain causes me to lose focus on trying to remain undetected. Some fucking spy I turned out to be. The vision of trying to explain myself to my new in-laws flashes through my head but given how much my leg hurts, I'm not sure that is the worst thing that could happen right now.

"Ethan? What are you doing here?" Thank God it's Mia.

"Fly fishing." I groan and roll onto my hands and knees. Blood is pouring from my leg. Okay, not pouring but it hurts like fuck all the same. I glance up at my giggling wife who is, at this moment the picture of concern as she leans out the window.

"Hang on. I'm coming down." And I watch in horror as she steps out the window and shimmies down the same drain pipe that just attempted to dump me. Of course, Mia being Mia she makes it look like child's play, landing with infinite grace on the path next to me, not a hair out of place. Well, actually that is not completely true. She's been sleeping, so technically, every hair is out of place.

She throws her arms around me which causes more pain. "I think I've broken a rib. Shit."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Come on." She starts to pull me in the direction of the side door.

"Fuck, babe. I can't go in through the house."

"They're not here. They went out for coffee with friends. Your parents, in fact. They only left a few minutes ago so they should be out for at least an hour." Oh, God, an uninterrupted hour with her. We start to move and then I stop her again.

"Wait! What about the housekeeper?"

"Gretchen. Pain in the ass but thick as two short planks. Don't worry." She pauses for a moment. "Unless you want to play it completely safe and go down to the boathouse."

"Boathouse, please." She takes my hand again and we go back the way I came but this time with less commando rolls. Within minutes we are upstairs in the boathouse, standing in front of a daybed with a stunning view of the lake as we peel each other's clothes off. She grabs my t-shirt and lifts it aggressively but the dampness makes it stick. "Fuck, babe… gentle."

"I don't think I can be gentle. God, I'm sorry, I just miss you so much." We try again this time getting the shirt over my head. Then she turns her attention to my shorts and notices my leg. "Baby, you're bleeding."

I look down feeling a little queasy. "So not good with blood." She grabs me just before the lights go out.

"Jesus Ethan. You're afraid of a little blood?"

"Just my own, I think." Oh, I feel sick. She sits me down and pushes my head between my legs while she locates a first aid kit to clean and dress the wound. Of course, no wound management would be complete without the viciousness of antiseptic.

"This might sting a bit." She dabs at the cut and I leap off the couch.

"Holy fuck!" That smarts and my eyes start watering.

"Sit down, you big baby." She looks pissed and I can understand why. All this medical care is taking away from some serious shagging time.

"Sorry, nurse." I sit down making my best effort to look contrite. "If I'm a good boy will you promise to wear the nurse costume next time?" She smiles and keeps dressing the wound.

"There, baby's all better." She packs up the kit and I hold out my leg to her.

"Kiss better?" She dutifully leans down and kisses the dressing. "And here?" I present my sore ribs to her and she places an open mouth kiss there that makes me hiss. I take a chance and pull down the front of my shorts to reveal the serious hard on I've been staggering around with all day. "And here?"

She laughs and kneels up to take a thorough look at it. "That looks like a nasty swelling you have there, Mr Kavanagh." She licks it from base to tip and I suck in my breath. _Fuck, that feels good._ Closing her mouth around it completely she sucks hard then settles back to swirl her tongue around it while she pumps me with her hand. Oh, lord, this is going to be the shortest blow job in history. Then she looks up at me. "Do you need me to suck out all that nasty poison?" Her full lips are poised to take me in again but I know if she does, it will be all over rover.

I pick her up so that her long legs are wrapped around my waist and gingerly carry her to the bed. "How about a hot pussy poultice?" I whisper into her mouth, as I lay her down. Then we are kissing hard as I settle her on her back. I pull off her shorts and panties quickly and insert my fingers into her hot pussy. "Fuck baby. You been missing me?"

"Not much, I've got Bob. What do I need you for?" She smirks so I thrust into her and her lips form a perfect 'O'. "Okay, I admit it." I pull out and thrust hard again making her body jolt up the bed.

"Admit what?" I thrust again, expelling a hiss of air. She gasps.

"Fuck. I missed you." I pull out agonizingly slowly and thrust hard again.

"I need you. Fuck me hard babe." Once more with feeling. Out slowly, slowly, slowly and slam!

"Do you love me?" She looks me in the eye and I have little warning except a small glint in the corner of her eye before she wraps her legs around my waist and flips me on to my back. _Ouch!_ Within moments she is riding me hard and it is all I can do to keep up. This was my virginal little wife two weeks ago. What the fuck happened?

"Don't test me Ethan." She is bouncing up and down like a pogo stick, her ripe tits jiggling in my hands. "I love you. I love you. I love you." She screams out as she comes and I hope like hell that Gretel or Gravox or whatever her name is, is deaf as well as stupid cos I think they heard Mia across the other side of the lake.

Our sweat-glistening bodies are clinging to each other, hearts still pounding. "Fuck babe. If that is what you're like after two days I hate to think what you're going to be like after two weeks."

She looks stricken. Tears threaten to fall as she lifts her head and looks at me. "Please don't talk about it. I don't want you to go."

"Maybe you can find an excuse to fly down to Miami and I can fly up to meet you."

She shakes her head. "I can't see that happening, it would take a miracle for Mom to let me go anywhere."

"Baby, we only have two days and then I have to leave. Can I see you tomorrow?" She smiles.

"Better than that. Come back tonight and I will sneak out after everyone has gone to bed. We can spend the night in here together."

"You're brilliant." I kiss her hair.

"And that is why you married me."

* * *

That is why later that night I am waiting in the boathouse for my wife when Christian and Ana approach in the dark. I have been watching for the past hour so I see them leave the house and start to walk across the grass, their intentions crystal clear. Fuck, what to do. I can't go out the door because they will see me and I can't stay upstairs. I quickly descend the staircase and ease myself inside one of the row boats pulling a tarp over my body. I can hear them whispering as they go up the stairs.

I figure if I just lie here very still that they will finish what they came for and disappear without any hint that I was here. I settle my breathing down and lie back to wait. At first everything is fine. They are probably into some heavy petting, maybe the clothes are off. Thinking about it reminds me of this afternoon and what I hope will be this evening. I feel myself getting aroused at thought of Mia's naked body. All of a sudden I hear a sound I never ever want to hear again…_WTF?_ He's smacking her. Shit, I know this is his thing, I've seen movies and Mia and I have tried a few moves of our own but to actually be sitting here … well, lying here, in the bottom of a boat, under a piece of plastic, listening to the gentle sounds of an ass being spanked by the great Christian Grey is something that I never imagined myself doing. For one moment I wonder if I should write this in a report and then quickly dismiss this thought.

Best just to lie back and think of Mia. No sooner do I have that thought then I hear her dulcet tones.

"Ethan!" Okay, less of the dulcet and more of a hissed whisper. "Ethan! Where are you?"

I quickly scramble out from under the tarp as she pokes her head through the door. She grins in the dark and I climb out of the boat as quietly as I can and go outside to join her. Immediately she is in my arms and we kiss.

"I was so worried that they had you trapped upstairs." She giggles into my chest.

"Nah, I saw them coming so I found a place to hide. Your brother is one kinky prick." I pull her closer and feel her body tense with my words. The air is cooler and she is trembling with the chill.

"Don't tell me. I don't want to know." She puts her fingers in her ears and pretends to sing. I pull her hands away and wrap her up again before she gets too cold.

"What are you doing out here?" Once more I am kissing the top of her head.

"I told the 'rents that I would come out and get those two. I even yawned my way through dessert so they would encourage everyone to abandon ship. BTW, Kate is fabulous. I really like her."

"She's a brat sister, but she's my brat sister." I chuckle as she snuggles. "You better go up and get them. I'll go around the back of the building. Don't take too long okay?" I kiss her and she goes inside the door and up the stairs calling out loudly as she goes. Hopefully that will be enough warning for them.

* * *

Within half an hour she is out in the boathouse with me, and all the lights in the main house are out. At some point between this afternoon and this evening she has managed to sneak some extra bedding and a bottle of wine down here so we snuggle under a blanket and look at the stars, sipping on red.

"Do you think we will ever have a normal life?" Her head on my shoulder makes me feel warm, loved.

"Nope. I'm hoping for delightfully abnormal. I figure we should be pretty good at that." She giggles which is now my favorite sound.

"Wouldn't it be weird if my brother married your sister?" More than weird. Given Kate has an innate self-destruct button when it comes to relationships it seems improbable.

"They're not that serious, are they?" I can't imagine Kate being really serious about anyone.

"Well, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. Both of my brothers were acting like lovesick puppies tonight. In fact, they reminded me of someone." She leans back and peers up at me from under her lashes.

"Who?" I lean in and kiss her nose.

"You." Her head lifts and our lips meet.

"Thanks. At least I have extraordinary taste." We kiss again. A chaste tender kiss. I don't think I will ever have enough of those lips. When we pull apart she sucks on her bottom lip, as if she can find some lingering taste of me. Christ, if I was hard before, I am positively aching now. A soft smile plays across her mouth and she reaches for her drink, bringing it to her mouth and sipping before looking back out to the view.

"No, I really think they are serious about Kate and Ana. It seems strange to see Christian like that. I have a feeling that they have a long way to go but I really think Ana will be good for him. I watched them and he moves around her like a satellite. As for Elliot, he couldn't stop touching Kate." Yep, sounds like they've got it bad. I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall during that dinner. A few hours observing Christian Grey could give me enough data to write a thesis.

"Two whole weeks of touchy feely Kate and Elliot. I think I might as well slit my wrists now."

"Don't you dare. You'll only end up fainting." Oh harsh, wee wifey. "I'm not looking forward to spending the next two weeks without you."

"Speaking of which. I bought us some new cell phones."

"Why? We have communication devices coming out our ears?" She looks genuinely perplexed and for a moment I wonder who the hell did her comms training.

"Mia, if I have to spend the next two weeks only able to have fucking phone sex with you then I don't want a bunch of agency spooks listening in." An 'o' forms on her lips closely followed by one of her big sexy 'I'm-Mia-come-fly-me' grins. Its like a hard on in a jar.

"Well, my princess, I think we should stop talking about our siblings and how fucking dire the next couple of weeks are going to be. Time for sleep."

"Mmm, not quite what I had in mind." She stands up and holds out her hand to me. We go into the main room and get ready for bed, which has a nice feeling. Don't get me wrong, I love to rip her clothes off but this domesticity is soothing. It feels real. We strip naked and snuggle under the blanket and it doesn't take long for me to be inside her. Our lips barely leave each other as we make love and I marvel again at how responsive her body is. Her orgasm is a quiet gasp but she pulsates and grabs my cock with her sweet pussy milking me thoroughly.

We whisper in the dark, declaring our love and before I go to sleep I thank the stars and whatever deities exist that I managed to make her mine.

* * *

Early in the morning I wake up to find her still wrapped around me. Instantly hard, I am loathe to wake her but I don't want to leave without making love again. Finally she stirs in my arms and lifts her head, resting her chin on my chest.

"Good morning." Her voice is husky. The sound of sex.

"Morning, princess." She stretches out like a sleek cat. Without pausing, she slides herself onto my cock. Oh, I could get used to this. "Are you sure you were a virgin before me?"

"No, I lied." We both laugh. Her muscles clinch around me and it feels amazing.

By the time we finish making love the sun is higher in the sky and I know I have to move. We make plans to meet for coffee later in the afternoon and soon I am off running around the lake to get home before Mom and Dad realize that I'm gone.

Less than twenty four hours later I am on a plane with Kate and Elliot, the love birds from hell and wishing I could be anywhere else.


	8. Ch 7 Last Kiss

**_I still remember the look on your face_**

**_Lit through the darkness at 1:58 _**

**_The words that you whispered for just us to know _**

**_You told me you loved me so why did you go away, go away  
_**

**_I do recall now the smell of the rain _**

**_Fresh on the pavement, I ran off the plane _**

**_That July 9th the beat of your heart _**

**_It jumps through your shirt, I can still feel your arms  
_**

**_But now I'll go sit on the floor wearing your clothes _**

**_All that I know is I don't know _**

**_How to be something you miss  
_**

**_Never thought we'd have a last kiss _**

**_Never imagined we'd end like this _**

**_Your name, forever the name on my lips_**

**_TAYLOR SWIFT - LAST KISS LYRICS_**

* * *

_Seattle 2005_

_Every shadow, every silhouette is his. She sees him everywhere and nowhere; the face that haunts her dreams. After she left him she walked home instead of catching the bus. It took her three hours to walk across town but she didn't feel the ache in her blistered feet. Nothing overshadowed the pain that wrapped around her heart, squeezing the air out of her lungs. Ignoring her father's inquiries as to her whereabouts she walked up the stairs to her room and lay down on the floor, struggling as the soundless sobs heaved through her body. The pain was so intense that twice she crawled to her bathroom and threw up. The third time there was nothing but a dry wretch left so she grabbed his sweater, the only thing she had of his, and hugged it to her body as she curled up on the floor._

_Two nights before they had been alone in the boathouse, her lying in his arms as they kissed and touched. They never went beyond that, no matter how much she begged and for the first time she began to wonder if he had ever intended to sleep with her. She had believed him when he had whispered his love in the darkness of the wee small hours before they drifted off to sleep. But for a year they had not told anyone, not even their closest friends that they were dating because the risks always seemed too great. The only people who knew were a select bunch of fellow students that they hung around with on campus and the agency who had eyes and ears everywhere. So now she had no one to tell and she didn't know how to go about missing him when so few people knew he existed for her._

_ In the weeks that followed she lost twenty pounds and her mother began to question her about eating disorders. She was so withdrawn that the agency dragged her in for a medical and counseling. The therapists got nothing from her, even though they knew what caused her such pain. After a month they threatened to withdraw her funding and she almost let them. Until the night that she decided to follow her beloved brother across town so that she could confide in him. That night challenged everything that she believed in. She was galvanized like never before to earn her way out of her circumstances. If the agency could get her away from the horror that she perceived her life to be, then she would work hard and move on. No man would ever let her down again._

* * *

Seattle 2011

Two weeks without Ethan is torture. More importantly, if I have to spend another hour shopping with my mother or Lily, I will go insane. Luckily with Ana away, Christian has made himself available for lunch which gives me an opportunity to start working on him. I don't want to come straight out and tell him about the agency's interest in him; in fact, we have been told by our supervisor that this is a last resort. My usefulness at the moment is to look for ways of gaining access to the GEH servers and to get some sort of surveillance into Escala. It irks me that I will spy on my own brother but then he is such a secretive bastard himself he will probably appreciate the irony.

The Mile High Club is not where I expected to be having lunch and while I love having any quality time with my fabulously successful and gorgeous brother, I am patently aware that I have lost the opportunity to plant more surveillance equipment in either his office or his penthouse.

"So, tell me more about Anastasia." I peer at him over my glass of pinot with a carefully constructed expression of amusement and challenge. There's a spark in his eye and his mouth quirks with the hint of a secret smile. _Ah, dear one, you are so easy to read. _

"She is special. Challenging but worth it, I suspect. Other than that I have nothing to say."

"Mmm…very telling, so being good in bed is a given and she is very attractive…" He nearly spits out his wine at me. "What? What is love without a good fuck and judging by your smile she must be an extremely good…" His hand shoots out across the table and he presses his hand across my mouth to shut me up.

"Don't talk about her that way," he snarls. I pull back and giggle.

"Alright, truce. Tell me more about her." I am not going to let him get off that easily. Partly because I am curious as his sister and partly because the more I know, the better it will be when it comes to dealing with Christian in this case. I don't want Ana Steele being a liability.

"She's smart, passionate, loyal. Of course, we haven't known each other very long." No you haven't and for all you know she could be an axe murderer. She isn't, I've already checked and knowing Christian, he already has a file on her. God, what I wouldn't give to get my hands on some of those files of his. Somehow I have to get into the GEH servers, just to satisfy my own curiosity. The sooner, the better.

"I'm happy for you. You're not eating very much?" A casual observation, but a significant one.

"No, I have a dinner tonight with Elena." I'm not sure if he has missed the narrowing of my eyes. He has always been open with me about his friendship with Elena. However, the chasm opens up between us because of everything that is not said. For example, how tainted that relationship actually is and the fact she is my biological mother. For a man who has his finger on the pulse and can throw resources at buying information it is amazing how ignorant he is. But then I guess you have to know what you are looking for. If only both of my brothers knew…"You're not listening. Still getting over the jet lag?"

"Yeah, something like that." I desperately want to tell him about Ethan. Christian and I have always been so close and it kills me to have a secret like Ethan and not share. Looking back over the past few years, I guess it was me that was doing all the sharing. Now I know better. My brother has lived in a secret world for years with Elena firmly at the center. Just the thought of it makes me sick. Having a reputation for being vacuous helps me not to deal with any of it.

* * *

The next day Christian makes a last minute plan to fly to Georgia to see Ana and I am left twiddling my thumbs. Now that we've had a chance to see how things are on the ground, Ethan and I have agreed to take a split approach to cultivating contacts. He is working on Kate and Elliot on the basis that this will put him in proximity to his father's resources and Kate's relationship with Elliot might come in useful. I am to concentrate my efforts on Christian and my parents. I want to believe that none of them know anything about this case but my family does secrets better than any other and the circumstantial evidence doesn't look good. Somewhere in here there should be someone calling conflict of interest on me but the agency doesn't particularly care about ethics.

Our job is to focus on acquiring intelligence and my role in particular is to hack systems. I need to get into Escala and gain access to its surveillance systems. Few people have unlimited access here but of those who do Elena is the most significant. She has already been listed as a person of interest. I could simply pull the mother-daughter card but since she is one of the few people who know about my agency history - of course, she was told it was something else at the time but a smart person could smell a rat. Elena may be the Whore of Babylon but she is no dummy. When I finally track her down she is leaving her salon in the early afternoon.

"Elena." I don't want to get caught on the salon surveillance system so I stand a few feet back from the door. Her face lights up when she sees me, one of the few reasons why I haven't cut her off completely.

"Mia, darling, welcome back." Her arms are around me and it is an effort not to cringe. "I wondered when you would call me."

"Yes, well, you know how things get. How have you been?" Her talons are digging into my arms and I would love to cut and run but I have a job to do. Being creeped out by my own mother is not part of the plan.

"Just fine. Come walk with me. I have am supposed to be meeting a client but I can blow her off for coffee with my favorite girl."

I want to yell at her to cut the crap but that would be futile. Crap is her forte. Instead I watch as she pulls out her phone. Blackberry Torch2. We already know that these are the phones of choice for GEH execs and it stands to reason that Elena would also have one. I have all three of the 2011 models in my bag ready to go. After she sends her text we head to the nearest restaurant and order coffee. It takes seconds to excuse myself to the bathroom swapping out her phone from her bag and extricating the SIM. I have all of her data locked and loaded into my phone within minutes and am back at the table before she has a chance to notice the swap. I replace the phone in her bag with a carefully timed drop of my napkin.

I smile at her sweetly. "So did you miss me, mother?" Her eyes flicker for a moment, just a split second worth of disdain. She might have wanted to watch me grow up but being an actual mother instead of a benevolent aunt was never part of her game plan. If there is one thing that could piss her off the most I have just put it on the table between us. A calculated mistake on my part. I don't need her animosity just yet.

"You know that we all missed you. Christian and your parents have kept me updated on your progress. Are you going to open a restaurant now that you are back in Seattle?" My turn to flicker. My parents might not have known about my distaste for cooking but Christian certainly did. He was more than a little surprised that I would stick it out. The real bitch was flying back into Paris from wherever I was in the world, whenever he decided he was going to pass through on business. Only twice did I ever have to claim a prior engagement that would take me out of town. I am sure that Christian would have let Elena know that becoming a world renowned chef was not going to be on the cards for me.

"I think we both know that would be pointless. How is Isaac?" This really is the same old game of cat and mouse. Isaac is important to her, but if it ever came down to a choice between he and Christian, poor Isaac would lose. Elena might play the game well, but she is not faithful in her heart, where it counts. Not even to me.

"Isaac is just fine. In fact I was hoping that you might join us for dinner tonight. He would love to see you I am sure." Lies, all lies. Isaac is over the Grey family involvement in Elena's life. He would love to cut us all off if he could. However, Elena calls the shots. Always has.

"I would love to mother but I have other plans tonight." Like pulling out hangnails. I have what I came for which is a way of tracking Elena's movements. Thank God for Christian's predictability and control. Even of her.

We chat about Paris and shopping and other topics that hold no interest for me. Soon a couple of hours have gone by and she gets a call. While she steps away from the table to take the call I take out my own phone and trace it. The call is coming from a cell phone nearby. As I watch the GPS blips forming on the map I notice the other party is approaching Escala. Interesting.

She comes back to the table slightly flustered and upset but then the wall comes down and she carries on with the banal and inane conversation without a hint of emotion. Finally I extricate myself from her with a promise to do dinner soon and to see her at the Coping Together event next weekend. Back at the safe house, I track her back to her apartment which surprises me. I had half expected her to go to Escala. Running Elena's data through my computer the name Leila Williams comes up as the person who contacted her last and the one who she sent a text to outside the salon. I am in the process of trying to track this girl down when her name comes up in a hospital database. Seems Leila just made a suicide attempt at Escala. _Fuck!_ A quick call to the team and they immediately go by the hospital to intercept her. Although there is restricted access to her while she is on suicide watch her cell gets the agency's special treatment. If Leila Williams can get into Escala then she might be of interest to us. Of course, if she is going to be of any use to us, we will have to keep her alive.

By evening I get the news that Christian has cut his trip short. I don't know what Leila means to him but obviously cutting herself on his living room floor warrants his attention. It is always reassuring to know that my cold, calculating, megalomaniac brother has a humane side. He runs himself ragged trying to locate Leila meanwhile we know exactly where she is and it doesn't look good.

* * *

I am early the next morning for a workout. I have to try to fit this in before Mom and Dad wake up which is not easy although Mom pulled a late shift last night so they will hopefully be out of it this morning. I run the lake pathway in the dark keeping out of sight as much as possible. The Mia my folks know is a yoga devotee who sleeps late and stays out and parties all night. Early morning, kick-your-ass Mia is likely to scare the shit out of them.

My sext phone beeps as I approach the boathouse which seems like perfect timing. My husband is thousands of miles away soaking up the sun while I tread water in Seattle waiting for something big to happen. The tension is starting to get to me. I run straight upstairs in the boathouse and call him.

"Hey, babe." His voice immediately soothes me.

"Hey yourself, slacker." I am pissed that we aren't together.

"Oh, someone needs to cum badly huh?" He knows that I am not angry at him. Just frustrated as all hell.

"Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?" I am a little breathless from the run but the anticipation is adding to my state. Come on baby, give me what I need.

"I'm gonna guess that you're in the boathouse. How about you strip out of that sweaty running gear… slowly, and I want a full description." Now who is breathless Kavanagh?

"You wanna Skype?"

"Yeah, I need to see you." His voice sounds sad. We quickly get ourselves organized and although we are operating with small screens it is enough to make it worthwhile.

"God baby, I miss you so much." His eyes look tired.

"Ethan…" and like the idiot that I am the tears start.

"Don't cry, princess. Please." He sounds a bit desperate and I am acting like a stupid clingy wife. For fuck's sake, get your act together Kavanagh.

"I'm okay. Just a bit emotional. I had coffee with Elena yesterday; I think it has put me in a mood."

"Did you get what you needed from her?"

I nod my head. "Yeah, and a bit more. Besides, there is a rogue; Leila Williams, causing some issues for Christian. I wish I could just pick her up and get her out of the way. I don't like the idea that the stupid bitch might come between Christian and Ana."

"So why don't you. We could hold her for a while without a warrant."

I shake my head. "No, she is staying at Susannah Jacob's apartment while Jacob's is traveling."

"Shit. Has she been anywhere near the factory?"

"There is no way to tell. We only started tracking her yesterday after I copied the data from Elena's phone. The agency swept in while she was in the hospital. She cut herself at Escala and had to be picked up by paramedics."

"Sounds like she won't be in any condition to go to the factory. They won't have her if she's cutting."

"On the bright side I have our new team member primed and prepped. First hint that Christian wants to extend his personal security team, which if I know my brother will be any day soon, then we're good to go. Have you met with the Florida contact yet?"

"Yeah, but there isn't much movement there yet either. Apparently there are some big projects coming up on the Eastern Seaboard in the next six months then they expect to see things heat up. Right now the traffic is quiet. Apparently Texas is reporting the same thing. We're all flying in the dark right now."

"How are Kate and Elliot?" While I am working a major case, I am also an interfering little sister first and foremost.

"God, they are going to drive me insane. I hate to speak ill of my sister but she is a screw up. Elliot is bending over backwards to be all Prince Charming and she just puts up emotional brick walls. The plus side which is also the downside for anyone sharing a house with them is that they fuck like bunnies."

I laugh. "Hey, that's my brother's specialty area. I just hope that he doesn't screw this up. Things could get ugly real fast if they have a fall out."

"Yes, well I got to see more of Elliot's specialty area last night than I ever want to again."

"What do you mean? You didn't walk in on them?" I am about to burst out laughing at the thought.

"No, that would have been preferable. No, I got to see the Manpower act last night with my sister taking center stage." My older brother once had a secret life as a member of an exotic dance team. I know that he did this to make money to ensure he could cover up most of my other brother's colossal fuck ups but he seems to have liked the gig enough to keep doing it for several years.

"Fuck, are the boys in Barbados?" One thing I know about Elliot is that the act isn't a solo one and the boys are all members of his building crew who still, on occasion, will get together and do a charity strip. As philanthropy goes it is a lucrative and effective fundraiser. Not that any member of the family officially knows about any of this. I think Elliot would rather cut off his left testicle with a rusty spoon than have our parents find out. Part of me would love to see it but then watching my brother strip for money is just all kinds of wrong.

"Yep, all of them. And they took one of the local club's by storm last night."

"Was he any good?" I know that he will be. He's always been a great a dancer, as has Christian. Elena made sure of that.

"How the fuck should I know? I'm a guy for Christ's sake. Although judging by the reaction from the crowd they are all pretty 'good'." He sounds a little put out.

"Jealous, Kavanagh?" I happen to know that my husband can hold his own on the dance floor. I would dearly love for him to do an exotic dance for me but I imagine that in Ethan Kavanagh's world that is never gonna happen.

"No, just slightly disturbed. You know once you see it you can't un-see it. Enough about them. You look a little scantily clad, Mrs Kavanagh. I think I need to inspect your lack of clothing." I can see that his eyes have darkened even through the dodgy screen and I wonder if he isn't suffering from a little bit of residual libido from my brother's sexploits last night. For the sake of matrimonial harmony and because I am just so fucking horny, I immediately slide my sports tank over my head and shift the phone so he can see most of my upper body.

"I don't know what you mean. I still have on a perfectly serviceable pair of panties." Propping the phone up on a shelf where he has a full view I turn my back, sliding my shorts down to reveal my thong. I'm fairly confident that the gasp is overseeing the globes of my ass in all their naked glory.

"Oh baby, that looks good enough to eat off. Can you feel my tongue on your ass?" As he says it I lick my finger and slide it over my ass cheek for him to see. "Show me your beautiful tits."

I turn to face the camera and lift my naked breasts so that they are pushed together. Again I lick my finger and run it around my stiff peaks. Once more he gasps. "You like that baby? What have you got for me?"

He pans the camera down and then finds a location to rest it. I have a full view now of his stiff cock and he strokes the length of it before rubbing the pre-cum around the tip. I can feel my mouth watering and I run my tongue around my lips as I watch. His cock is so beautiful, thick and long with amazing ridges that I love to wrap my mouth around.

"Show me baby. Show me that beautiful wet pussy." I shift onto the daybed adjusting the camera and then strip the lacy thong to one side. "Oh God your lips are glistening. Are you feeling a bit horny princess?"

"A bit is an understatement." He laughs and then stops suddenly as I slide one finger inside my folds pumping myself twice before inserting another finger.

"God I miss your tight wet cunt baby." Just the sound of the c word on his lips makes me frig my clit faster. I love it when my husband talks dirty to me.

"Do you want to see me fuck baby?"

"Yeah." We've been at this for the past few days so we both come prepared. I have my dildo at the ready, hidden in a box under the day bed and I quickly plunge it inside myself while I continue to finger my clit. He is lubed up and pumping his cock hard and fast. Neither of us can talk now as we watch and climb together. I break first, screaming out as I come then I hear an almighty 'fuck' through the phone and watch as his semen spurts all over his tight abs. If I have to be away from him then this is the next best thing and I love watching him cum.

"You okay babe?" I'm gasping for air and he chuckles.

"Yeah, so much better. You know you are the most beautiful woman in the world right now, don't you?" His words touch me and I have to fight not to cry again. "I love you, Mia."

"I love you too, babe."

* * *

The next few days things go very quiet and so finally, in an act of desperation, I decide to go tower storming. Fronting up to Escala on Tuesday evening I find that my brother has barely washed or showered for three days and is holed up in his office working every hour that God sends. Before I go in to see him I have a quick chat with Gail Jones, his housekeeper, who tells me that things have not been good for the past few days and that Miss Steele- Ana, has stopped visiting Escala. Gail, being the loyal employee that she is, doesn't reveal any more.

Tentatively I knock on the study door. "Christian?" I slide the door open and see Christian huddled over some paperwork. He isn't reading, the office is almost pitch black even though it is only late afternoon. As I cautiously approach his desk and turn on the lamp he lifts his head to reveal that he is unshaven and his eyes are bloodshot. "Honey, have you been drinking?" I glance nervously over at the cocktail cabinet on the far wall. I can't see any evidence.

"No. What do you want Mia?" He sounds tired and pissed off but at least if he isn't half cut then I won't have to kick his ass. Drunk, sullen and angry Christian is a ghost from the past that I don't particularly want to visit. It seems funny to think that in my 12 year old brain I thought if I didn't learn a martial art as my mother insisted, then I wouldn't be a threat to Christian and he would stop wanting to hurt people. I equated the skill of self-defence to an invitation for him to hurt me and I didn't want him to do that and end up hating himself. I certainly didn't want to end up hating him. Now of course, he thinks the skills he hones with Jean-Claude Bastile are all he needs. He has yet to see what a fully trained operative is capable of and I have no desire to show him when he so obviously is not on top of his game.

"Mom sent me to check on you. You haven't been answering her calls." Mom didn't send me but she has been fruitlessly calling him. He glances up but doesn't see a lie there. Meanwhile I am searching the room for the god given opportunity this is. I move over to the sideboard and pretend to examine the artwork. "Is this new?" Leaning in to touch the acrylic texture I surreptitiously press a camera into the frame so it is pointing at his desk. _That's one down._

"Tell Mom I'm fine. I just have a lot on." He tries to go back to staring at the pile of papers in front of him. _You're not fooling anyone, Grey._

"And what should I tell Mom about Ana?" His head shoots up; his eyes unfocused for a moment turn suddenly hard.

"Don't fucking tell her anything about Ana. Ana is over." The wave of sadness that sweeps over his face is heart wrenching. I am almost tempted to run over and throw my arms around him but then he thumps his hands down on the desk and stands, shoving his seat sharply backwards until it hits the bookcase behind him. With one quick movement he sweeps the paperwork from his desk before slapping both hands on the desk top and hunching over. "She's gone. She's fucking gone."

To my horror I see tears drip from his face straight down on the large desk pad, leaving angry wet stains. This is like watching a complete regression to the Christian of my childhood. The impotently angry young man who had no direction and no hope. I love my brother with all of my heart, even with all his faults but when he is like this he scares the shit out of me and as far as I know I am one of the few people who can reach him in this state. Like mother like daughter comes to mind in a moment of inappropriately timed irony. Perhaps I should call her. Or perhaps I should channel her.

"Stop. Stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself." My voice is harsh and I school my facial features as I know Elena would. Hard-nosed bitch is what is called for here. He needs to be dominated. At first there is a flash of anger in his eyes, a look that says he will defy me. Then there is a subtle shift and his eyes lower, his body goes perfectly still. I raise my upper body, reshaping my core and widen my feet to a more dominant stance, breathing deeply.

Silence hangs in the air between us. "You fucked up with her. A stupid mistake. She's better than that. So are you. Wallowing in self-pity is not going to get her back." He is very still, controlling his breathingas he soaks up my words. I am only guessing at what might have gone wrong but if I know Christian, he has been some sort of prick to Ana and she has called him on it. The problem with Christian right now is that this is unknown territory for him. He has connected with this girl. She has changed the game and he has no fucking idea how the rules work. _Welcome to Relationships 101, Christian._

"If you want her back you are going to have to be proactive and resourceful. You are also going to have to apologize for your transgressions and mean it." Rounding his desk I move to stand directly in front of him. I reach down to pick up the lamp and place it back on his desk. _At least he didn't break it._

"I am already being punished for my transgressions." His voice is a murmur, his face screwed up in self-loathing. Not an attractive look.

"You stupid fuckwit. This is not punishment. This is self-induced wallowing. It is not a real punishment if you are administering it yourself." Now I can see I am speaking a language that he understands. His head bows a little more, his hands unclench by his sides. I turn and walk towards the blinds taking my time to open them and let the last of the afternoon light in. _And that's two._ "Be a man. Front up and let her deal out to you as she must. Then be prepared to walk away."

"I don't know if I can." Turning suddenly, I attempt to stare him down.

"Stop fucking whimpering. It's pathetic. If you want to do this then you don't deserve her." Right now my stomach is churning and the bile is rising in my throat as I slowly make my approach. How do they pull this shit? A bit of slap and tickle is all very well but I can't imagine how people live in a 24/7 D/s relationship. I'm not sure I want this type of power over anyone, even for fun.

"But she won't talk to me and Elena says…." _Oh fuck, here goes nothing._ Changing speed, I stalk over to the desk where he is standing, pick up a ruler and slap it down across his fingers as my hand slips up onto the shelf behind him. _And that's three. _He barely flinches. Although it sickens me to do it, with each phrase I utter next I punctuate my words with more slaps. This is a language he understands. The problem with what comes next is that I am about to give him reason to suspect I know more than he wants me to.

"Enough! Get your head out of your ass and find a way to be heard. Put your considerable resources into making it happen. And I would advise you to stop taking Elena's advice on this. She doesn't play on a young woman's playing field any more. I do. I'm telling you now, fucking fix it. Find a way."

He eyes me with suspicion so I blank my look, trying not to give anything more away. Our eyes lock for a moment in challenge and then he frowns down at the desk again. "I don't know what to do."

_Get a fucking clue for a start._ "Your brother is in Barbados right now fucking her best friend. Why don't you start there?"

"Watch your mouth Mia." There's my boy. Then he returns to his sulk. "Katherine Kavanagh hates me." Oh boo fucking hoo.

"Well, there is your first mistake. I suggest you do something about turning that one around real fast." He looks at me with barely concealed anger. "Who do you think we turn to when you guys fuck things up? You do not want to hand Kate that kind of ammunition."

"But Ana signed a NDA. She won't talk to Kate."

"Jesus, you are naive aren't you? You're NDA won't mean shit where girlfriends are concerned. Unless you have some colossal secrets, then what Kate doesn't know already, she will guess the moment she sees Ana. Don't ever cross the best friend."

"When did you get to be such an expert?"

"Do you have any idea how many broken hearts Elliot has left all over Seattle? Who do you think they all come to when the shit hits the fan? Well, I have spent the past four years trying to avoid his shit and I'm not about to stand around wallowing with you in yours. Grow a pair and get your girl back or you are not the Christian Grey that I thought you were."

With those words I storm out of Escala and race my VW sports all the way to Bellevue at top speed hoping like hell I don't get caught and that I can calm my nerves before re-entering my parents' house. I can't help a little smile at the thought that as well as the cameras, I managed to plant a listening device on that lamp.


	9. Ch 8 It Will Rain

_**If you ever leave me, baby,  
Leave some morphine at my door  
'Cause it would take a whole lot of medication  
To realize what we used to have,  
We don't have it anymore.**_

_**There's no religion that could save me**_  
_**No matter how long my knees are on the floor (Ooh)**_  
_**So keep in mind all the sacrifices I'm makin'**_  
_**To keep you by my side**_  
_**To keep you from walkin' out the door.**_

_**'Cause there'll be no sunlight**_  
_**If I lose you, baby**_  
_**There'll be no clear skies**_  
_**If I lose you, baby**_  
_**Just like the clouds**_  
_**My eyes will do the same, if you walk away**_  
_**Everyday it'll rain, rain, ra-a-a-ain**_

_**Bruno Mars - It Will Rain**_

* * *

_Seattle 2007_

_Graduation had come and gone with the absence of family to see his success. Now he was preparing to travel back home after spending two years away. Once he had moved to Langley there had only been the briefest of trips back to Washington. Most of the time he arranged to meet the family in some other mutually agreed location for a holiday. Usually he would make some claim to adventure sport and they would follow him around the world. Skiing in Aspen, snowboarding in Japan, hiking in NZ, surfing in Hawaii. Anything he could dream up so that he wouldn't have to be back in Seattle and the temptation of Mia._

_He knew that she had raced through her own studies, completing her honors degree in the same time he had taken to complete his undergraduate. Now he was ever hopeful that since they had done everything they were asked he would be able to finally make contact with her. For three months he had been dreaming about this, waking up in a cold sweat from an intense wet dream as he envisaged finally being able to hold her, to apologize, to love her._

_Three days before he was due to go home he got the news that she had moved to Paris. She had taken up the opportunity to do her PhD. Her family had been told she would be in Paris for an extended time to train under a world renowned chef. His sources said that her work would be in other locations throughout Europe and the States. Whatever, she had chosen not to wait for him. She had given up and moved on._

_The news hit him hard. After not drinking for two years, he went on a bender that included picking up a girl in a bar and spending 24 hours releasing two years of sexual frustration. One month after her departure he sobered up, kicked the latest girl out of his apartment and signed up for his Masters degree, telling his parents that he would be spending a year volunteering in Cambodia._

* * *

Seattle 2011

Finally I arrive back home after the longest two weeks of my life. SeaTac is heaving with people but I easily spot Elliot through the crowd. As I make my way towards him I spy her across the far side of the airport. Risk-taking yet again but it is so good to see her. Blonde hair suits her, although she looks a little too much like her mother for comfort. She smiles over the top of her magazine before skipping out of the terminal. Elliot hasn't noticed, luckily. Every bone in my body wants to run towards her right now and I rack my brain trying to think of a way to ditch Elliot and get to the safe house.

Of course, Elliot coming anywhere near SeaTac is a risk in itself. As far as anyone knows, except for my parents and some their closest friends, Elliot and Kate are still in Barbados. Since the threat of the blackmailer became known to them they have been hatching plans to try to gather enough information to identify who it is. So now my major problem is keeping them out of the way of a major CIA operation. In an effort to keep them safe I have trailed them back to Seattle a couple of days earlier than I planned. My supervisor wants to make sure that they don't do anything stupid and since Mia is not meant to know they are here in Seattle, the job has fallen to me. Mia kept an eye on them at the Coping Together event and she has filed a report that reads something like the Keystone Cops. Damn amateurs.

As we drive towards his house, Elliot unloads more of the plans they have hatched to try to find out more about the blackmailer. Many hours were spent discussing the issue in Barbados and I have to say that Elliot Grey has surprised me. He really cares about his family and he seems to be head over heels in love with Kate. More to the point he is incredibly astute and intelligent. It doesn't quite fit with the media image of the playboy, high school drop out, building developer. I find it kind of reassuring given how serious he and Kate are. Certainly the agency doesn't have this insight into him but then that is what I am here to do. Observe their behaviors, examine their motivations, create a profile that will allow us to predict their likely usefulness to the main operation.

Elliot's house is affectionately nicknamed the treehouse and one glance around you can understand why. The house is an amazing structure, unlike anything I have ever seen before and when I discover that he not only built this but he designed it I am forced to reevaluate what I know about him again. He is a wildly creative person, an artisan. On the flight to Barbados he had shared some of his music with us, demonstrating this incredible talent as musician, composer and producer. Then in the bar in Barbados he showed that he is a natural entertainer and from the state of the women in the bar, a pretty enticing and skilled exotic dancer. Now looking around the treehouse I can see his attention to detail and form as well as his passion for eco-construction. The guy is incredible and completely underrated. Suddenly Kate's interest in him becomes very clear. This is a man who will challenge and support her and perhaps even shake up her notions of what it means to be a high achiever.

Kate looks drawn when I see her and it transpires that she has had some gastro. I'm not convinced that it is all it is. Part of my suspicion is fed by the way Elliot is hovering over her protectively and then there is just something in her body language that is shouting at me. That and the fact that having lived with Kate all of my life, I know when she is lying to me.

"Elliot has given me an update on Christian and Ana and the creep. Sounds like you've been busy since you got back."I pile my plate up with takeout in the kitchen, making sure to wave it about, taunting Kate. She doesn't look good and Elliot is rubbing her back. Interesting. I keep shoveling food into my mouth as I pretend not to notice.

"Yeah, well we are doing everything we can to try to work out who he is. I would feel happier knowing that you are in the apartment if Ana decides to go back there. She really shouldn't be alone if this chick is running rogue with a gun." Part of me is wondering if Ana and Kate ever spend any time at the apartment and how soon I can get Mia there. I'm not that worried about Leila Williams. Mia has already fed me the intel we have gathered on her and someone is tracking her already. Of course, if she has a gun then she poses a risk that we just don't need and we may have to look at getting her out of the way. I have a feeling that I will be doing an assessment of Miss Williams fairly soon.

"Yeah, like I am going to be able to protect her. But hell I would rather be there too, after all she is expecting me."If Leila Williams is really wanting to confront Ana, as we suspect, then the apartment is going to be the best place to remove her from the picture.

* * *

Later that evening we go up to Elliot's studio office, which is located in a turret at the top of the house. It is an amazing space with almost 360 degree views of the landscape and Puget Sound. Once more I am blown away by what he has done with this house. Almost as impressive is the research that Kate has pulled together on their blackmailer. Of course, she has been watching too many crime shows on tv and some of her assumptions are way off but this is a good thing. I don't really want my sister getting any closer to the truth than she needs to be. What worries me is that I will need to keep a closer eye on what she is doing here because she is just as likely to stumble onto something that could compromise the mission or place her in real danger. I need to find a way to get Mia into this room so we can examine it together.

Then Kate tells us what she has planned for gathering more information and I almost consider getting one of our teams to place her in custody. Fuck. My crazy, risk taking sister has arranged to take part in a slave auction at Sirens, a notorious Seattle sex club. The club is actually a complex of clubs, some that are the public face - a night club, Burlesque room and Male strip show venue. However, there is also Club Orpheus which is a members only sex club, famous for its BDSM clientele but which also caters to voyeurs and swingers. The slave auction is a once a year event that we are well aware of and Mia and I have already been allocated this as a possible point of contact for other aspects of our mission. Fuckity fuck. If Kate and Elliot are going to be there then our cover is blown. Seems Elliot isn't too happy about her going there either.

"You did what?"Elliot could be blowing smoke out his ears at this point. If I wasn't already pissed at Kate about this it would be comical.

"I trained with the girls for four hours today. Stella seems to think I have what it takes and TJ is making sure that you are on the roster for bar staff on Thursday."Kate is barely holding herself in check. This is the tenacious part of Kate. She has decided that this is the way it will be and no one, not even Elliot, is going to stop her. I might need to step in soon.

"Kate, this guy is dangerous. If he makes either of us the whole thing is over. He has already managed to get a gun into the club once, how do you know he won't do it again. I can't believe that you would consider doing something so stupid." Oh, man, don't call her stupid. That is a nut-busting provocation if ever I heard one.

"Elliot, calm down. Stella and TJ are working on disguises for us. I have costume fittings tomorrow morning. We can't let this opportunity pass us by. The auction is the biggest event in Club Orpheus calendar so the likelihood of his being there is high. Stupid would be if we did nothing."Kate could be placating a child at this point. Elliot is not happy and I can see his point. I have to keep reminding myself that they are simply interested in Jack Hyde as a possible threat, when in actual fact he might not be the worst of the possible patrons they might encounter at this event. We already have the guest list so there are unlikely to be any surprises for us but now I need to find a way to be there legitimately and my mind is churning this over quickly, assessing my options.

"Don't use that logic on me Kate. I am not risking you."Elliot looks ready to lock her up and throw away the key. I have to put a stop to this now before she hurts him.

"Guys, guys…"I step between them and Elliot looks slightly horrified but he keeps his focus on Kate.

"Stay out of this Ethan."Man, she is not going to back down, I know my sister.

"Can you get me on the guest list?"I look Elliot directly in the eyes trying to pull his focus. I already am on the guest list under an assumed name, which would have meant disguises and more latex prosthetics than I can bear thinking about but I know that Elliot has enough contacts there to get me included without the assumed identity and that might not be a bad plan. It would simplify things moving forward.

"I don't know…I guess so."

"Right, so, if Kate is there with the protection of the other girls plus the club security. You and I and, I guess, TJ are on the floor. Surely we can get a look at this guy."Elliot still looks pissed but now he is directing his ire at me too. He didn't expect me not to back him up on this but hell, we will have agents crawling all over the place. I am convinced that we can keep Kate safe.

"Okay." He gives Kate a look that says this isn't over. Meanwhile I have to find a way to make sure that Mia doesn't attend as planned. She is going to be pissed.

* * *

The next morning Elliot gives me a lift into the city on the premise of picking up the keys to the apartment from Ana. Part of my cover is to move in with Kate and Ana while I apply to graduate school to do my Masters in Psychology. The truth is I already have enough qualifications in Psychology to last me a life time but staying at the apartment allows me to spend time at the safe house whenever possible.

Arriving at the SIP offices I find myself being totally eye-fucked by the receptionist who rings through to Ana. Mia would have a field day if she could see this. Once I have the keys I race out of the building and phone Mia.

"Babe, please tell me that you are at the safe house." For the past twenty four hours I have had visions of getting my wife alone and fucking her senseless. The thought of her body plays havoc with my cock which feels like it has been at half-mast for weeks.

Her voice is tense. "I'm here. The team is waiting for you." Fuck! Can't we catch a fucking break.

"ETA ten minutes." I hang up resisting the urge to toss the phone into the nearest trash can. Is it too much to ask that I could have five minutes alone with my wife? I adjust my pants, Christ, right now five minutes is all it would take.

When I arrive at the safe house I am greeted, not by Mia, but by Rory Jensen, our handler.

"Kavanagh, good." No, friendly greeting. No, 'how was your trip'? Just - good. There are a couple of other agents working on analysis in one of the bedrooms. Two more are monitoring surveillance video and GPS tracking screens. I see blips all over it. Shit when did all of these people take over this space. There goes our secure fuck shack.

"Rory. Mia" I acknowledge him and then Mia, who doesn't move away from the screen she has been looking at. Instead, she nods, picks up a clipboard and begins to flick through papers. I notice the frown on her face and I know she is frustrated too. Christ, when we took this space there was some hope that we might get it to ourselves from time to time. Looks like we might have to be more creative which is fine, but the waiting is going to kill me. "Tell me what we've got."

"We're tracking a few secondary and tertiary targets but we haven't yet been able to put any devices in place with any of our primary targets except for the Swan." Resisting rolling my eyes, I move over to the GPS tracker and watch. Code-naming all our targets is standard practice but feels ridiculous when we all know who we are talking about. The Swan is Elena Lincoln and Mia dealt with her in the first week back.

"So none of the other teams have managed to get to the Hawk?" I keep my eyes focused on the screen.

"No. He is eluding us at the moment but we're hopeful that one of you will be able to get close on Thursday night."

"Yeah, well there is an issue with that." The conversation I had with Kate and Elliot at the treehouse has necessitated a change of plans. "Nothing we can't handle but if I go in as planned my cover will be compromised."

"Yes, well, we have another issue. The Bureau is stepping up on the trafficking investigation. They could end up getting in our way."

Crap. "How close are they?"

"Too close for comfort. There has been some question of insider trading in Lincoln Timber and that raised a few profiles that we don't want in their sights." Mia is holding back on some details from me. This is one of those few times that I can read her clearly. She glances away.

"So what are we talking here, Rory?" Even he is looking sheepish.

"We don't want to do this but we're talking deep cover at Orpheus." Shit.

"So that takes us out of the picture then." Damn, a NOC agent or non-official cover puts Mia and I back on surveillance only, if that.

"Well…no." I look at Mia and she is furiously trying to avoid eye-contact. Then the penny drops.

"No. No way." Fuck no. There is no way that Mia is going deep. Over my dead body. When I look around the room I realize that the only person in this room who knows about our relationship is my wife and she looks distinctly like she wants to do this. Jesus, I am going to take her over my knee as soon as I can get her alone.

"Ethan, we have no choice." Don't you try to reason with me, Mia. It won't work. She seems to take in the look in my eyes and backs off, deferring to Rory.

"Look, we have one window of opportunity here. You were going into the slave auction anyway. Now we can step this up and…" I am seriously fighting the urge to punch this prick in the face.

"No, wait. We agreed that we could get Christian to place a NOC, there was never any discussion of us going in deep. We can't just go in there and pretend. We need training."

"Not we, me. And I have a trainer. Two in fact, both of whom are part of the scene."

"Are you fucking kidding me? Are they agency?" Rory and Mia share a guilty look. I'll take that as resounding no. "So we are putting Mia's cover in the hands of two non-coms who may or may not be able to leave us uncompromised."

"Not exactly." Mia's voice is very level and calm. Oh yes, Lucy, you have some splaining to do. "They won't know."

What? "How do you know what they will do then?" Looking at her, another lever clicks into place. Jesus H Christ. She's talking about her mother. "Can I have a word with you outside?"

She looks from Rory to me and then nods. Rory steps aside and lets her exit the room with me following closely behind. We don't stop at the corridor but opt to walk right outside the building. It takes us less than ten minutes to get down to the wharf where we find a quiet spot to view the incoming ferries.

"What are you doing Mia?" I keep my eyes focused on the water as my hands grip the rail. I'm so freaking livid I could warp the metal with my bare hands. She glances down at the death grip I have on the railing before turning around to face the city. She leans both elbows on the rail, grazing my arm as she does so. Her dark glasses hide her eyes but her smile is tense to match her body language. She can fool many people with this relaxed tourist routine but she can't fool me.

"Listen, we need to get in. Elena is the way to do that. I go to her and ask for training and she will have Isaac there in a heart beat. At least with them we know that I will be relatively safe."

"What the hell makes you think that she wants to see her own daughter become part of the scene." I'm grasping at straws here. Relying on a mother-daughter bond that simply doesn't exist. Mia knows this.

"Elena didn't hesitate to fuck either of my brothers." Her words make me cringe. "Her motivations are screwed. All I have to do is give her the slightest hint that I want in and she will be dancing for joy."

"Alright, so she takes you on as her protegee. Then what? Do you tell her everything?"

"What? And have her go straight to the Hawk? Not on your life." Mia stretches away from the railing before walking around to the other side of me. I let her settle back into a comfortable position, leaning on the rail. "Elena will take me on to train as a sub. I will get in and verify some of the other targets. Maybe even get plants on them. By that time you and I will have officially met as Kate and Elliot's siblings and we begin our tenuous relationship. We play a game of cat and mouse with each other. If anyone finds out then Orpheus becomes our cover and no one needs to know about our real relationship."

I take a deep breath, sucking in as much air as I can to calm myself down. As cool as I can manage I turn to face her. "So let me get this right. You are going to ask your mother and her lover to train you. You are going to become a legitimate member of Orpheus and enter into a BDSM arrangement. If it goes wrong then you and I will pretend that we have been involved all the time and that is preferable to finding out that we are married. Are you completely insane? On what planet is that better than the fucking truth Mia?"

"Well, with one, you get to have your nuts threatened while you wield a whip and a cane. The other you just get your nuts threatened." Her head is tilted to one side, hand on her hip.

"This is fucking crazy. How far have you gotten talking to Elena?"

"I've already talked her into taking me on Thursday night." Shit!

"Well, I am going to be there."

"Rory and I have discussed it and we think it is preferable that you don't go. He has arranged to have one of the others attend instead."

"Well, he can attend using my cover but I am still going."

"But you said yourself that your cover could be compromised." Now it is my turn to be evasive and sheepish.

"Kate and Elliot are going to be there. So Elliot has me on the guest list as myself. I'm going to claim to have written a book that SIP turned down so I can talk to Jack Hyde. And all of that means that you can't go in as yourself, not if your brother is going to be there."

Thinking that I have her cornered on this is a big mistake. "Well, in that case, I will just have to make sure that my costume is a good one. I have already arranged this and I am going in whether you want me to or not."

"Don't I get any say in this at all?"

"Jesus Ethan, this is what we are trained to do. What the hell is your problem?"

"I don't want some asshole thinking that he has any right to manhandle you, is my problem. I certainly am not going to stand back while you get your ass smacked by some sicko."

"So you're calling my brother a sicko? And my mother?"

"If the gag fits, babe. And besides, if your brother knew what you were doing I am pretty sure he would lock in a fucking cage." Her arms wrap around me and she leans her head on my shoulder.

"Sweetheart, you are going to have to trust me on this. I will be okay."

I look at my watch. I need to get back to the apartment. "I'm not happy and we will talk later but for now I have to go. I'm supposed to be meeting Ana." Wrapping her up in a hug I all but devour her with my kiss, thrusting my tongue into her mouth with frustration. Her risks are going to give me fucking heart failure and I want her to understand the depth of my anger. In true Mia fashion she thrusts back and matches me completely, her hands rubbing over my shirt.

"Just remember, Ethan Kavanagh, you are mine. Nothing comes between us. Not even this case."

"Mmmm…ditto…by the way what did Rory mean by insider trading? Who is involved?" She pulls back and looks into my eyes.

"Seems my brothers have been buying up stock in Lincoln Corp companies. This goes beyond Lincoln Timber. However, Linc has been a naughty boy and importing substandard materials again. His stock values are about to plummet and it doesn't look good for GEH to be involved in a share buy out when that happens. The corporate fraud geeks are looking for personal links and at the moment Elena has two major investors. GEH and Lincoln Corp. Christian could end up in the firing line."

"I thought Elena wanted nothing to do with Linc? How the hell did he get any investment leverage with her?"

"That I don't know. Elena might be a hard nosed bitch but I wonder if she really has the ability to run a multi-million dollar business like Esclava. She would be totally in the shit if Christian ever pulled his investment out. I think she is only afforded any respect in the business world by his indirect involvement."

"So the upshot is that the FBI is now looking closely at Christian?" She nods. "So are we telling him yet?"

"I think we need to consider telling him very soon. She might be my mother but there is no way that I am letting that bitch or her dodgy ex-husband take apart everything that he has worked for. My brother might be a sick fuck in his personal life but he is a good man, an honest businessman. He gave the best years of his life to her depravity and I won't let this happen without a fight."

"You know your brother is not sick. BDSM is a lifestyle choice not a sickness." Her eyes are cast down and I see the tears glistening on her cheeks. I reach down and brush them away. "I know that you were scared of him baby, and yes, there are some residual issues from his childhood that would have brought most people to their knees but you have to accept that even though your mother committed a crime, it was the lifestyle that allowed Christian to begin to deal with those issues." Ana is going to be the litmus test here. She is already reaching him on a level that no psychologist would think possible. Mia wraps her arms around me and snuggles into my chest as I stroke her hair.

"I love him so much Ethan. There is just so much at stake."

"Listen, if the agency thought that Christian was the bad guy here then you wouldn't have been allowed to work this case. Even they wouldn't go for that conflict of interest." Which begs the question, how deep is Elena in this? If they believed that she was truly a major player in any of this then surely Mia wouldn't have been assigned on that basis either. However, given the way the agency has used the relationship between Elena and Mia so far, nothing would surprise me. As soon as this one is over, I have got to get us out of this fucking business. The sooner, the better.

* * *

_**A/N: My apologies for slowing down the updates. Real life is hectic at the moment and the complicated story lines take time to think through. I hope that you will be patient while this is happening and keep reading. Thank you all for your support and your kind comments. Your reviews and questions do keep me on my toes and I appreciate the way you are helping me to shape the story. Sasha xoxo **_


	10. Ch 9 My Immortal

_**I'm so tired of being here**_  
_**Suppressed by all my childish fears**_  
_**And if you have to leave**_  
_**I wish that you would just leave**_  
_**'Cause your presence still lingers here**_  
_**And it won't leave me alone**_

_**These wounds won't seem to heal**_  
_**This pain is just too real**_  
_**There's just too much that time cannot erase**_

_**When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears**_  
_**When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears**_  
_**And I held your hand through all of these years**_  
_**But you still have all of me**_

_**You used to captivate me**_  
_**By your resonating light**_  
_**Now I'm bound by the life you left behind**_  
_**Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams**_  
_**Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me**_

_**These wounds won't seem to heal**_  
_**This pain is just too real**_  
_**There's just too much that time cannot erase**_

_**When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears**_  
_**When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears**_  
_**And I held your hand through all of these years**_  
_**But you still have all of me**_

_**My Immortal - Evanescence**_

* * *

**W/E Sun Jun-11 - 2011**

**Report Filed: Agent Mia Grey 40566713 Case File No. 778346657/E**

**Update Operation Psyche**

Subject Eagle spent most of Monday Jun-6 at Escala was visited by Agent 40566713 at 1645hrs where three 451B low res microcam spots were fixed on the north wall (wall art work), west wall (window frame) and desk (table lamp). Wireless relay unit secured in Weller art glass vase located on Cees Braakman Pastoe sideboard (north wall). No sound recording is available at this time. Server decryption incomplete.

Subject Eagle left Escala at 1830 hours with guard detail and traveled to GEH Corporate offices where he remained until 0200hrs. He returned to Escala at 0215hrs and remained there until 0600hrs whereupon he and his detail commenced a one hour run on track B...

* * *

_May 2001_

"_You ready, Mia." She descended the stairs missing every second one and jumping the last six to land beside him as he stretched out his quads. "Come on, you need to stretch."_

"_Yeah, you just look after yourself old man." Mia gave a token gesture of a stretch by jogging a little on the spot while pulling her arm behind her head. Christian shook his head with a wry smile on his face. They walked out the french doors off the kitchen before settling into a gentle jog as they descended down the garden toward the lake. Upon hitting the boardwalk they picked up the pace. The early morning air was cool on their skin and their labored breathing hit them as they headed into the third mile._

"_So are you going to miss me?" Mia, ever the show off, turned around and started to jog backward. Christian kept a careful eye on his sister, making sure that she wasn't about to trip and hurt herself. The last thing he wanted was to have to carry her back to the house and explain any injury to their mother. Since the arrest their parents were keeping him under surveillance, even calling in Elena's services which made him laugh. Luckily the little prick that had been telling everyone about how he made a conquest of Mia Grey hadn't pressed charges. Christian didn't know why his family had backed off but he was relieved that they had. For Elena's sake, he didn't want to blow Harvard before he even got there. _

"_Yeah, I'm gonna miss you shrimp, like an ingrown toenail." He reached out to ruffle her hair but she quickly ducked. She had something on her mind, he could tell. Sooner or later she would spill._

"_Can I ask you something?" Obviously it would be sooner._

"_Do I have a choice?"_

_She shrugged and then stopped at the entrance to the boat ramp. Dropping to her hands she did a quick few press ups. He joined her just as she gave up and sat on the cold ground. Glancing over he decided to keep going. Whatever it was, she was more likely to talk when he gave her space to think. Mia was like that. A lot deeper than anyone else in the family ever gave her credit for. And at 12 years old she was more physically mature than he wanted to think about. That was why pricks like Mitchell McCabe thought she was fair game._

"_Do you ever wonder about your parents? Who they really were?" Fuck. Not the conversation he wanted to have. He tried very hard not to think about the crack whore who gave birth to him and then proceeded to ignore him for the first four years of his life. If he was lucky._

"_No. Never." His reply is terse, wanting to shut this down quickly. He noticed that she had taken the hint. Smart girl. "Why? Do you wonder about yours?"_

"_Not really. It's just that we're doing this project at school on our family tree and I asked Dad if I could see my birth certificate but he said he couldn't find it. I was just wondering…"_

_She pauses and bites her lip. This isn't about her project or her parents. "You know, maybe Dad has some good reasons for not wanting you to see your birth certificate." And as soon as those words were out of his mouth he could see her point. Why would this be a secret?_

"_You could break into the safe. He keeps all the important stuff in there." They all knew about the office safe. He had worked out the code a long time ago but since it was full of personal family documents he really had no use for the information it contained. He knew about as much about his past as he ever wanted to know. "Think wedding anniversary. That ought to get you in."_

_It was two years later, around the time that Christian dropped out of Harvard that she had the need to remember that piece of information._

* * *

**W/E Sun Jun-11 - 2011**

**Report Filed: Agent Mia Grey 40566713 Case File No. 778346657/E**

**Update Operation Psyche**

Subject Eagle attended Coping Together Charity Gala at his parents' Bellevue residence in the company of his security detail and AS. The evening was spent in the grounds until 0030hrs of Sunday when they were accompanied back to Escala without incident. AS is not part of this investigation so no attempts were made to plant a surveillance device on her person. While Subject Eagle and party were not directly engaged in any untoward events, the evening did have several minor incidences worthy of note.

Subject Eagle's sibling,Code Name: Raven, was a covert presence at the event along with his partner KK. They were accompanied by JH, Raven's housekeeper, who was a legitimate staff member with Caleb's Catering. JH supplied cover for KK to work at the event as a waitress. Speculative motive for their presence could be related to increased blackmail activity from one of our Secondary Target's Code Name: Vulture. AS is newly appointed PA to the Vulture, we are yet to ascertain if this is coincidental.

Raven and KK are not considered Primary or Secondary Targets at this time, however, their activities may need to be monitored for their own safety. KK was seen to have had an altercation with the Swan. This did not go unnoticed by others present at the event. While the Swan did not appear to be agitated by the confrontation, this has raised KK's profile which may be a safety concern moving forward.

During the evening the Swan also made direct contact with AS which may also raise some future safety concerns.

Another covert presence at the event was Swallow 13. Neither the Vulture nor Swallow 13 were on the guest list for the evening but both were present. Both stayed on the perimeter of the event and did not pose a threat. They did not appear to be working together nor did they seem aware of the others presence. Given their uncertain relationship to the Eagle, site officers elected not to apprehend them at this time.

However, Raven with the assistance of Eagle's security detail almost apprehended both Swallow 13 and the Vulture in the course of the evening. Agents 21132445 and 33243119 were able to intervene but the concentration of resources allowed both Swallow 13 and the Vulture to slip through the cordon and we lost track of them for a period of time. Swallow 13 was later picked up in the internal fire escape surveillance footage at Escala. She departed at 0430hrs, it is unknown what activities she was engaged in while inside the Penthouse. Around 0030hrs the Vulture departed without incident but then evaded the surveillance detail north of the central business district at 0100hrs. He was not located again until 1200hrs.

* * *

_April 2004 Bellevue, Seattle_

_The study was bathed in moonlight which made her job a lot easier. She checked the door again before making her way across the room. Nerves kicked in as she reached the safe shelf but she swallowed down any reservations. This time she had asked point blank about her birth certificate and once again her father had hedged. She pestered him, out of desperation mostly, until finally he exploded and told her no without adequate explanation. His flat refusal left her hurt and angry but not completely helpless. She recalled her conversation with Christian choosing to take matters into her own hands._

_Her hands shook as she worked her way through the combination. The first time didn't work but on the second attempt the barrels fell into place with a subtle click. Opening the door she found a pile of documents all carefully organized and labeled. Using what was close to a photographic memory she committed the order of everything to memory as she proceeded to check through each document. She was searching for the one that her father claimed was misplaced. One thing she knew about her lawyer father - he never misplaced anything._

_The sweat from her palms threatened to stain the paper and she had to stop for a moment to wipe her hands on her jeans. A sound of creaking floorboards above the study froze her in place. Barely daring to breath she paused before unfolding the paper in her hand and found herself holding both the certificate and a faded photograph. Disbelieving both the words typed carefully across the paper, and the image of three figures outside a hospital entrance,she blinked back tears of horror at what she was seeing. The bile rose in her throat and she had to swallow down the urge to cry with disbelieving rage._

* * *

June 10 2011 Coping Together Charity Event

The figure, draped in black, stands to one side of the dance floor watching a couple dance. Even through the black sequined mask the venom bleeding from her eyes is clearly visible. If this were any other woman, I would be curious but I know what is going through her head and the ugliness is emblazoned across her face. There is no uglier look on a woman than jealousy. She wears her hatred of Ana Steele like a cloak and she has good reason to feel the threat. Ana is pure light and love. Everything that Elena is not and can never be.

"Hello, mother." There is only the most subtle of glances my way to acknowledge that she is even aware of my presence. Her complete focus is on Christian as if by mere force of will she can make him turn to look at her. He only has eyes for Ana. Elena has ceased to exist. It must hurt like hell. Seems like the perfect time to rub salt in. "They look good together, don't you think? I have never seen Christian so besotted with anyone. I really think he is falling in love. Don't you?"

Her body stiffens as she straightens up and turns to look at me. "Don't call me that, and I don't think that little tramp has what it takes to hold Christian's interest for long. She is a gold digger pure and simple. I just hope your brother opens his eyes before it is too late."

"Anyone would think you were jealous…mother…"A hiss forms in her breath as I continue to watch them dance. "Christian is a big boy. He seems to know what he wants." Pausing for effect I turn back to look in her eyes. "And what he doesn't."

Elena pushes past me and starts to stalk towards the house. I grab her arm before she can get too far. For a moment we both freeze glancing down at where I am holding her before I raise my eyes to hers again. The telltale glistening of tears is unexpected. I might have assumed that she had feelings but I know better. Elena doesn't do emotion. Not unless you call hard-nosed evil bitch troll an emotion.

"Elena, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything. I know you only have his best interests at heart." I'd like to say that it wasn't my intention to antagonize her but sport is sport and she is fair game…most of the time. However, right now I need her so I have to rectify my little mistake. "I wanted to talk with you."

"Why don't you run along and join your date. He is looking a little lost." A lie. The one thing Sean doesn't do is lost. He fits in everywhere. The only thing Sean doesn't do is straight even though he has yet to come out to his family. I am merely a beard and have been for years. It has been a convenient arrangement for both of us. He gets a cover story for his parents and I get a foil for unwanted male interest. While it is good to have him here tonight it does feel strange to think that once all of this is over, I won't need him again. God, I miss my husband.

"He is fine. I think he has his eye on someone else." I know exactly who and there is going to be one lucky little waiter who will get to play Cinderella to his Prince Charming. "Can we go somewhere private."

She hesitates for a moment but I can see when she can't resist. I never ask her for anything. With a slight inclination of her head I get what I want and slipping my arm through hers I move with her to a secluded space on the outside of the main marquee near the band. I require the cover of music for this conversation. Thank God for big bands and Frank Sinatra wannabes.

"I have heard about a place that I think you are familiar with and I want to know more." She says nothing, so I continue. "I want you to understand that I hold no judgment with this request. Things happened for me in Paris and I want to pursue my new…interests. From what I hear, you might be able to assist me with my…hobby."

"Stop being so cryptic, Mia. It is a tad over-dramatic don't you think? Why don't simply tell me what you are talking about."

"Orpheus." I watch her face color slightly and then she pulls her emotional mask down.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Sharp eyes drill into mine willing me to reveal what I know. The phrase 'cold day in hell' rings through my brain.

"Yes, I think you do. In fact, I know you do. I also know that Christian has had a membership there for years. I want in." That should be enough information for now.

"Why don't you ask him then?" She goes to turn around and I still her with my hand again. She's smart, I will give her that much. Thank God there is something redeeming about the bitch. Matricide is such an ugly word.

"Don't be stupid, Elena. Christian might be heavily into the lifestyle but he would not want his baby sister taking it up. My sources say he hasn't been showing his face around the club for a while anyway, so he is useless to me."

"Exactly. So why do you think I, as your mother would approve of your request either." The expression on her face changes from resistant outrage to shrewd suspicion in a heart beat. Fuck. "If you have 'sources' then surely they can give you what you want."

"Don't try to be what you are not and have no intention of ever being. I don't want you to be my mother. I want you to be my mentor. I want you to train me. And my sources might know who is coming and going from Orpheus but they want nothing to do with the scene." She still doesn't trust me. Who can blame her. That was a massive fucking amateur slip. I am allowing her to unsettle me. _Concentrate Mia. You're better than this._

"What makes you think I would be interested in training you?" Time to play my trump card.

"Because if you do, then I won't tell my mother about your little arrangements with my brother." Her disdain and anger is replaced momentarily by a frisson of fear. _Yeah, suck on that bitch!_

"You have no idea what you are playing with, little one." _Oh, for fuck's sake. You have no idea who you are playing with you overdressed, over-primped, over-bleached, over-aged nanny goat. I could have the fucking book thrown at you for what you did to Christian with no goddamn statute of limitations you ugly, fucking pedophile. _I hear Ethan's voice in the back of my head, restraining me from clocking the bitch. _Breath Mia, just breath._

"Elena, I have no intention of hurting my mother - my real mother - with any of your deceit. I don't particularly care what your arrangement with Christian is. I do know that if Mom ever found out it would break her heart."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." She seems to be stoically trying to convince herself.

"Stop playing games, Elena. You wouldn't be this upset about Ana if there wasn't some…history. Train me and I won't tell anyone what I know."

"You are speculating on something that you know nothing about. I don't expect my own flesh and blood to blackmail." Oh God, I think I might vomit on her $1500 shoes. Now that might be poetic justice.

"Get used to it, Mother. I have enough photographic evidence to convince my parents that you and Christian have been more than friends." She has gone very pale as she considers my words. If she knew that I could prove that she was screwing my brother when he was underage she wouldn't hesitate but I don't want her to know the extent of my knowledge. Right now this is about giving her enough to take me on. Believe me, if I could un-know some of the shit I know, un-see some of the shit I've seen, then I would. I would give my right tit to be ignorant of her evil. I'd give my left tit if she could not be my biological mother.

"I don't want you in this world. It isn't for you, Mia." Yeah, well I'm not sure I want you in this world either.

"Don't sweat it, Elena. Like I said, I played a little in France. I like it. I want it. And I know you are a club member. I figure from what I have seen of you and Isaac that you are the domme, a switch at best." She looks like she is about to try and put up another argument. "Look, I know about the Slave Auction this week. I'm going anyway. I already have an invitation. What I would prefer, is not to go on my own. If you don't think I'm holding my own then I will give you the photographs and we will forget I ever asked. However, if I can convince you I belong then you will train me, or better yet, have Isaac train me. I don't care."

For a moment it seems as if she is going to put up another argument. I maintain a look of complete defiance and determination. Finally she capitulates. "One night. If I have any concerns or reservations then I will load you into a cab and we will never talk about this again. And you will give me the photographs anyway."

There is no way in hell that I would just hand over those photos but she doesn't need to know that. I nod and walk inside the house. Making my way upstairs I pass my bedroom and pause outside Christian's old room for a moment. The last time we stayed together in this house was just before he went to Harvard.

* * *

_June 2001_

_The screams woke her with a start for the third time that week. She lay in the dark listening to his desperation for a few minutes, hoping that he would calm and settle. After a few moments she knew it wasn't going to happen. _

_The phone was in her hand before she had time to think about it. He answered within three rings._

"_Hey baby girl. Let me hear." It took a few steps down the hall to reach his room and she entered quietly knowing that if she woke him suddenly from the dream they would both regret it. Holding the phone out she counted quietly to five and then let herself out of the room and back into the hall._

"_It will be okay, sweetheart, just do exactly what I tell you." His voice calmed her nerves._

"_Okay." She whispered. They were alone in the house. Elliot had moved out months earlier. Her father was away on a business trip and her mother was on a night shift. She thought about telling them how frightened she was to be left alone with him but then she knew Christian would be mortified if he thought she were scared of him. And she knew that her parents were at the end of their rope with him. "Lelliot, I'm scared."_

"_Don't be, Mimi. I'm right here, just follow the plan. Go inside the room and stand by the bathroom door. Make sure there is nothing blocking the way. And don't drop the phone."_

"_Lelliot…" Her body was trembling. The quality of his cries told her that this was bad._

"_It's okay, baby girl. Just be ready to run. Don't hesitate. And remember…"_

"_Yeah, got it. Don't drop the phone." She moved across the room quietly and stood by the door to her brother's bathroom. His thrashing was punctuated by heart rendering screams and gut wrenching moans. The head of his bed was right beside the ensuite door and she had to step back away from his arm when he flung it out. "I'm ready."_

"_Alright. I'm not going anywhere. Do it." She took a deep breath, counted again and then grabbed the blanket pulling it back from his body. His torso twisted on the bed responding to the change in temperature and he began to reach for the blanket. She threw it down to the foot of the bed._

"_Christian. Christian." As she spoke in a singing tone that was as clear and calm as she could muster, she reached out to touch his face. If she was lucky he would calm, grab the blanket and go straight back to sleep. But if he looked like he was going to wake up she needed to run and lock herself in the bathroom._

_His body stilled for a fraction of a second and it was enough to throw her off her timing. Unable to respond fast enough his hand wrapped around her wrist before she could get away. Their eyes met in the darkness, his wild, hers frantic. She barely had time to scream before he had thrown her on the floor, straddling her body and pinning her there with a hand around her neck. She began to choke and thrash as hard as she could but her fear and the lack of air was taking her under. He pushed harder, breathing heavily, an almost evil grimace on his face and those wild eyes flashing in the moonlight. His beauty captivated her as much as his anger terrified. Before she passed out she did the only thing she could manage and lifted one hand to his face, the other hand holding the phone, still gripped in her right hand, she held to his ear. Consciousness was slipping as she heard her oldest brother yelling down the phone._

"_Christian. Christian you fuck, let go of her. It's Mia for Christ sake. Let the fuck go of her. Christian answer me, you fucking cunt. Don't you fucking hurt her. I will come after you and kill myself. Do you hear me? Do you fucking hear me?" Elliot's voice was fading for her._

_Everything froze for a moment and then she felt the pressure ease as Christian leaped off her body. Tears were coursing down her face as she struggled to breath through a choking cough. "Oh God, oh God, Elliot, she's choking. Fuck, she's choking."_

"_Christian stop. Calm down. She will be okay. Help her sit up." Mia could hear Elliot yelling from through the phone. A continual litany of calm-the-fuck-down as she and Christian sat on the floor facing off through their tears. Finally, when his mortification overtook her fear she crawled across the floor and took his face in her hands in an effort to make him look at her._

"_I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry." He sobbed as he wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled into him, her arms wrapped around his waist and held him while he cried. She knew he meant every single word. Hearing Elliot's voice from the floor beside them, she reached down and picked up the phone._

"_Mia, Christian, somebody talk to me. Guys, please. What's happening?" _

"_Elliot, we're okay." She wondered if they would ever be okay. She wondered what she would have done if Elliot had been on stage and unable to take her call. She didn't want to think about him not ever being there to help her. She didn't want to think about what would have happened tonight if he hadn't been able to get Christian's attention._

"_Honey, put the phone on speaker so I can talk to him." She glanced down at the buttons and did what he asked. Without hesitation he started to speak._

"_Christian, listen to me. You are okay and so is Mia. Do you hear me? You are both going to be alright. Do you understand me?" _

"_No, I could have killed her. I almost killed her." Christian's tears start anew but his voice is that horrible flat emotionless tone that she hates. That tone frightens her more than the dreams or the screaming or the sheer physical violence. The flat tone always sounds like he is giving up and she couldn't live with herself if he ever gave up._

"_But you didn't. We did exactly what we planned and it worked. It always works and you didn't really hurt her. Did he baby girl?"_

"_No, I'm fine. Honestly. I was scared but I knew you would realize and stop. I knew you didn't want to hurt me. I knew you would stop, Christian." She doesn't know who she is trying to convince. Her body is shaking with the sheer exhaustion of going through this again. So many nights, too many close calls. Too much remorse and regret for all of them._

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mimi. Please don't hate me too much." She clung to him._

"_I can't hate you." She wanted to tell him that she loved him but hated the reaction it would bring. He never wanted to hear that, no matter how much she wanted to say it._

"_Christian, Mimi needs to sleep." This too was part of the ritual of getting through the night. Christian got up off the floor and helped his sister to rise. They both climbed on to the bed and he pulled the blanket over their bodies. Mia lay on her side facing the door with Christian spooning behind her, he placed the phone on the pillow above their heads. This touching and hugging in the middle of the night, in the midst of a crisis, was the only time he let her get this close. She thought of it as her reward for the fear and terror. Tomorrow, Elliot would come and take her out and he would hold her while she cried. Christian would disappear to wherever he went when he hated himself too much to stay around. They would give him space and try not to think of a time when he would choose never to come back. The sound of a guitar came through the receiver and as Mia closed her eyes she concentrated on the sound of her brothers singing to her._

_**Saying I love you  
Is not the words I want to hear from you  
It's not that I want you  
Not to say, but if you only knew  
How easy it would be to show me how you feel  
More than words is all you have to do to make it real  
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me  
'Cause I'd already know**_

_**What would you do if my heart was torn in two**_  
_**More than words to show you feel**_  
_**That your love for me is real**_  
_**What would you say if I took those words away**_  
_**Then you couldn't make things new**_  
_**Just by saying I love you**_

(More Than Words - Extreme)

_When the song finished she kept her breathing even and heavy as she listened to them talk._

"_Bro, she really will be okay."_

"_She's only okay because you are on the other end of the phone." Christian sounds so disgusted with himself. "I can't do this to her any more. It isn't fair."_

"_On you or her? You didn't ask for this either, Christian. And she loves you. We both do."_

"_Don't. Don't say that. She can't possibly love me when I scare the shit out of her every second night. I wish Mom would arrange her shifts differently when Dad is away." When they were younger she would do exactly that. It was only when Christian and Elliot became teenagers that their mother left them alone at night and she didn't do it very often. Christian was being too hard on himself._

"_In a couple of weeks you will be across the other side of the country and it won't matter. You have to let it go. We have this plan for a reason and it works." She wanted to hate Christian. She tried to summon up that hate even as she lay here in his arms. She hated the fear, she hated that Elliot had to save her. She hated that Christian couldn't wait to get away from her. But she knew hate was simply the other side of the coin. Even at his scariest she loved her brother and she would miss him. Just like she missed Elliot. They would both leave her here and she would have peace but she would ache with missing them. She just wouldn't miss fearing for her life._

"_What if it didn't…"_

"_Stop. It worked. It always works. Let it go." There was a long period of silence in which she could almost hear Christian's brain ticking over. Just as she was about to drift off to sleep they started to talk again. This time about music. She knew that Christian wouldn't go back to sleep and she knew that Elliot wouldn't hang up until morning. She also knew that none of them would ever tell their parents about these nights. With the reassurance that they would talk until daylight she finally drifted off to sleep._

* * *

Seattle 2011

I push save on the file and close down my laptop thinking about my brothers and the secrets I am keeping from them. When did this happen? When did we stop telling each other everything? Would there ever be a time when we would sit up all night, holding each other close, keeping each other safe? I miss them more than I can say and that missing has become more intense since I stepped foot back on US soil. I have never felt so far away.

* * *

_**A/N: I apologize for slowing down with the updates. I hope that you enjoy this offering. Thank you for your ongoing support and the lovely reviews. I appreciate each and everyone of you for helping to shape this work and for continuing to show your support. Sasha xxx**_


	11. Chapter 10 Hell of a Season

_**Even though **_

_**You don't know **_

_**You're reacting all along **_

_**What I see **_

_**Is killing me **_

_**You won't make it on your own **_

_**In this hell of a season **_

_**Give me more of a reason **_

_**To be with you **_

_**Be with you, yeah **_

_**Say you'll be better **_

_**I'll keep waiting forever **_

_**You know I do **_

_**Know I do, oh **_

_**Even though **_

_**I don't know **_

_**I'm pretending that I do **_

_**It's my curse **_

_**I can reverse **_

_**I'm still waiting here for you **_

_**In this hell of a season **_

_**Give me more of a reason **_

_**To be with you **_

_**Be with you, oh**_

_**Hell of a Season - The Black Keys**_

* * *

_Rome, Fall, 2010_

_Leaning on the window of the research room in Casa Medici, he listened to the plaintive sounds of the cello coming from the public music room below. They weren't meant to be there, they weren't French nationals and Mia was the only one of them that could possibly pass as an artist but the allocated cover allowed them to move freely here. Angelique was accompanying Mia on piano giving Jean Claude and Ethan the opportunity to scour through the archives of the library. _

"_My friend, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Why do you both pretend that there is no connection between you?" Jean Claude had not raised his head from the documents he was examining, his white gloves tracing the text carefully, reading glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose. "Mia has the look of a woman who wants to tear you limb from limb while maintaining a carefully constructed indifference. This can only be a woman scorned."_

_Ethan didn't reply, rather he turned back to the window and listened to her play. All of her emotion poured through the instrument, everything that she was holding back from him. Two months had passed since they were thrown together in Spain before moving to Rome to chase a trail that did not look hopeful. Two months in which he thought that perhaps she might at least show some crack in that careful reserve. Instead, she projected a frivolous airhead when they were in public and an ice maiden when they were alone._

"_It no longer matters. What happened was so long ago, we were young, life goes on." His voice was so quiet that he was not even sure that Jean-Claude had heard him. Silence descended over the building. After a few minutes he heard her footsteps approaching the library. The careful opening of the door was in deference to the age and history of this place rather than any gesture to their work. Not that he was achieving very much._

"_Ah, Mia. You need to take Ethan out of here. He is climbing the walls and straining my nerves, noh?" She stood still, looking from one man to the other before nodding. Ethan could not resist her lure. He followed like a puppy and heard the quiet titter of Jean-Claude's laughter as they descended the spiral staircase._

_Outside on the street they helped themselves to a scooter. Ethan revved the engine as Mia donned a helmet and climbed on behind, squeezing her body into his. When they had first arrived in Rome, she would not touch him, preferring instead to grip the back of the scooter with her hands. To maintain balance, her thighs would tighten against his, thus defeating the purpose. Now, she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled against his back, sending his body into a frenzy from which he did not wish to recover. _

_Rather than heading away from the city, he weaved his way down the hill towards the Piazza Papolo, threading past cafes and galleries, through the narrow streets towards the river. Today, he had a need to go to the Vatican; something that was happening with more regularity than he cared to consider. Mia barely raised an eyebrow as he parked the scooter near the piazza San Pedro before he handed her off the bike. They walked with purpose across the square towards the entry turnstiles as Mia took the scarf from around her waist and draped it carefully over her shoulders. Ethan inhaled deeply as he watched her bare skin disappear beneath the fabric and quietly made the sign of the cross as they approached the large wooden doors of the Basilica._

_Once inside he moved with purpose towards one of the chapels on the right hand side, joining a small group of tourists who were receiving a blessing at the altar. Mia stood back and watched as he knelt and prayed to a God that she had little use for. As she watched, a diminutive nun approached her._

"_Your young man is of the faith but you are not, I take it." A wizened face spoke to her in broken heavily accented English. Mia responded in French._

"_Oh, he is not my young man. And no, I am sorry, I am not a Catholic." Her voice cracked with the emotion of those words._

"_Ah, the foolishness of youth. Anyone can see that he is indeed 'your' young man. I watched him escort you across the square. And you do not have to be a Catholic to have faith. You believe in him, at least."_

_Mia wiped the smallest of tears from her eye. "He was once a man I believed in completely. My faith was strong. But then he … disappointed me. He lost the right to call me his a long time ago. Perhaps it would be better if I converted after all."_

"_You mistake my words, young one. I said that he is yours not that you are his, although I suspect that we are talking semantics. And you should not talk of converting on a whim. We have enough bad Catholics raised in the shadow of the church." She chuckled at her own joke. Ethan stood at that moment turning to walk back and join her. The older woman patted her arm briefly before shuffling away with a smile, leaving Mia to ponder her words._

_Ethan took in the slightly stunned look on Mia's face and approached her with a sense of trepidation. He wanted to take her hand, to hold her face and kiss her, even in this most holiest of places. His reaction to her was at a chemical level that he could no longer control. Instead of the usual look of disdain on her face, he saw disbelief and his eyes glanced towards the old nun she had been talking to. Just as he did, the woman turned and faced him, the light filtering through the high stained glass windows struck her face. Her smile was serene, knowing and he felt an incredible wisdom and sense of well-being. As his smile widened her head inclined slightly and she turned to continue on her way._

_Feeling a light-hearted hope that he hadn't felt for a long time Ethan turned back to a still stunned Mia. When her eyes met his, he saw enough to tell him that if he was patient she would come back to him. He had no idea how he knew that but it was enough. Their hands touched briefly as they walked towards the door and made their way across the square. Once more on the bike and heading back towards the historic district she leaned her body against his soaking up his warmth and he smiled, really smiled for the first time in nearly five years._

* * *

Seattle 2011

We walk back to the safe house in silence. I go inside to pick up my bag and she walks me outside again. As we approach the door of the building she pulls out her phone and sends a text before gripping my hand and dragging me toward a taxi. Once inside she gives instructions to take us to a small boutique hotel near Pike's Market and her lips are on mine possessively before I can speak.

"Babe, what are you doing?" I murmur through the kiss. She groans into my mouth with her hands on my collar pulling me in close. I can taste coffee on her tongue with a hint of mint. The unsubtle press of her breasts against my chest is sending electricity through my body making my cock dance in my pants.

"I need you. Now!" She growls. Immediately my hand dives beneath her skirt and slides up her thigh. When I reach her apex I search for panties that aren't even present. Instead, I feel the hot skin of her sweet pussy, soaked in moisture that releases a musky aroma as soon as I touch her.

"Jesus, babe. I missed you so much." She swallows my murmured words with her tongue and the suction of her full lips as she presses herself into my hand with a throaty groan.

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain." Her tongue thrusts back into my mouth as I laugh.

"How about a little holy fuck instead." I insert my finger inside her swollen lips and she gasps, her strong muscles gripping me.

"Better be a fucking big one, repeated over and over."

"Better watch your mouth or I might have to spank you for blaspheming." I remove my fingers and give her thigh a gentle slap, making her jump and writhe. The cab driver has us firmly in his sights through the mirror. "Eyes front buddy."

As he looks away Mia giggles into my neck. "I want you to tie me down and fuck me hard all afternoon."

"Oh, no, baby. I am going to fuck you painfully slow. I have at least four hours before I have to meet Ana and I am going to make the most of every one."

I toss a note at the driver before the car has come to a stop and we race into the hotel. As I start toward the reception desk Mia reaches into her bra, pulls out a key card and waves it at me with a grin. Smiling I take it from her and pull her into the elevator instead. Once the door closes I turn around and press her into the back wall and lift her arms above her head as I grind into her pelvis. Ever responsive, she whimpers into my mouth letting me feel her need. The elevator stops two floors up and a couple step inside wearing exercise gear. When I step away from Mia she has a wet patch on the front of her skirt so I move in front and shield her body. Our eyes lock, the humor and lust fighting with each other as the guy clears his throat. They step out four floors later and we continue up one more level.

Without hesitation she drags me down the corridor and into the suite. A bucket of champagne is standing on the sideboard. I glance around and notice she has clothes for both of us laid out and a selection of toys on the bed. Once more I am a little blown away at her eagerness for hot sex given her virginal state just prior to our wedding.

"Pour me a drink babe, I'll be out in a minute." She calls over her shoulder as she heads into the bathroom. Within moments I have two flutes filled and have stripped down to my boxers. Being a woman of many talents Mia is standing at the door of the bathroom ready for me when I turn around and I almost drop the glasses. With one arm above her head she leans on the door in the skimpiest of balcony bras, a suspender, black stockings and high heels, her eyes are glowing with anticipation. Struggling to recover my equilibrium I approach her. There is no way I can hide the way my pants are tenting at the sight of her.

"Are you packing or are you just happy to see me." Placing the glasses on the table I stalk over to her. Even with heels on I can stand over her and she has to lean her head back a fraction to look into my eyes. They sparkle as she looks at me setting my blood racing. I trace the outline of her face with the back of my hand before grasping her chin and pulling her in for a kiss. Our lips meet my tongue sweeping past hers before tugging at her bottom lip with my teeth.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, baby. I missed you so much." My hands reach down to grab the cheeks of her ass. She has the most amazing ass. Most women spend their lives trying to minimize their backsides. Not my girl. She fills my hands with her soft plump flesh while her generous thighs wrap around me. Her body is still firm and athletic but she is all woman, rounded curves and luscious feminine beauty. I carry her over to the bed and lower her down. Her hands strip my boxers down my legs and I sink between her thighs entering her with a firm thrust. Her heat, her moisture, her scent is overwhelming making it impossible for me to hold back.

"Don't hold back baby. I know you need to come. I'm ready for you." She slides our hands between us until we are both stroking her clit and she's right. Her body is ready to explode her muscles pulsing violently around me almost sucking my orgasm out of me.

"Shit babe. I'm sorry. Damn it." She does this to me every time. I feel like a horny teenager whenever I am around her. She only has to open her legs and I am ready to explode.

"Hey, don't. That was amazing."

"No, it was too damn quick and you deserve better. I'm sorry." I pull out of her and go to the bathroom to get a warm cloth. When I walk back into the bedroom Mia is lying on the bed with her hand draped over her face. I wipe between her legs before throwing the cloth down beside the bed. Lying down next to her I pull her into my chest and feel her stiffen in my arms. Pulling her hand away I see that she is crying. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"I missed you so much and I was looking forward to this and then you…you…take the most beautiful lovemaking and make it seem so inadequate. Like I am inadequate." I stare at her in horror.

"Baby, no. It's me, not you." I pin her back on the mattress, wiping the hair out of her eyes and I look at her intently. "Sweetheart, I didn't mean to make you cry. That was beautiful, you are beautiful. I just wanted it to last longer. I want to be perfect for you but you set me off every time. I have no control where you are concerned. I'm sorry. I don't ever want to make you cry. Please don't cry."

"Does it matter that much? You turn me on so much just by breathing, I don't understand how that happens. Is there something that I can do better? I want to be better for you." This is a Mia that I hardly ever get to see. Her rare insecurity is so endearing.

"Babe, you couldn't be any better. Here." I take her hand and place it over my already hardening cock. "This is what you do to me. I am horny for you all the time." I lean in and kiss her as she begins to smile. A smile that turns into the sexiest damn giggle I have ever heard.

"All the time?"

"All the time, you witch." She giggles into my mouth some more. "And you know it." Her hand starts to stroke, bringing me further to life. "Baby, this time I am going to fuck you hard until you scream. I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Her smiling lips whisper into mine. "Now get over here and show me what you can do."

Four hours later, having thoroughly worshiped at the altar that is my wife's body and making her scream out a deity's name in every language she knows I was on my way to meet Ana at the apartment. As I walked towards the building I received a text from Rory.

_Swallow 13 inside your sister's apartment. Proceed with caution._

I am about to take off at a run when I spot Christian Grey's black SUV outside the building with he and his driver still inside. Trying hard to maintain some semblance of cool I walk up to the door of the building. I almost have to issue a written invitation before either of them notice me and begin to move.

"Kavanagh! Wait!" Christian is out of the car in one fluid movement racing toward me. "Sorry, I think there is a situation. You need to wait here." He pushes me out of the way, while grabbing Ana's keys from me, a look of panic in his eyes and I fall back against the wall as I watch him racing up the stairs.

"Mr Kavanagh. I apologize. Mr Grey is a little anxious about an unwanted visitor who may be inside your sister's apartment. If you could wait here, sir, we will go and clear the building." Jason Taylor, Christian's bodyguard is trying to maintain an outward calm but I can see that he is anxious to follow his boss, probably to stop him from doing something profoundly stupid.

I nod and let them go and then follow them up as quickly and as quietly as I can, gun pulled. I text Rory to get a feed from the surveillance equipment I have already set up in the apartment. Like Mia, I was irked that I would be spying on my sister and her friend but grateful that right now I have a way to monitor what is happening inside. The screen on my phone shows that Ana is still by the kitchen bench facing a very bedraggled and unkempt looking woman who could otherwise be her mirror image who is holding a gun. Christian Grey is approaching her with Jason Taylor just inside the door of the apartment. Christian is walking across the room to join Leila Williams who has lowered both her head and her gun and dropped to her knees. Ana has lifted her hand to her mouth in horror.

Through the door I hear Christian instructing Ana to leave in a seriously pissed voice but there is no movement. There is some more discussion then I see Taylor move to sweep Ana up into his arms and I retreat to the bottom of the stairs securing both my gun and the phone out of sight. Grey is still inside the apartment it would seem which doesn't worry me as I have seen him pocket the gun and all our intel has said that Williams may be unstable but is unlikely to hurt anyone except herself.

Ana looks shell shocked. All the color has drained from her face and something in the way she is holding her mouth in a grim line says that this is not about the gun or the girl but about Grey staying up there in the apartment and all but yelling at her to leave. She needs to be brought back to the moment.

"Jesus, Ana! What the fuck is going on?" I pace towards them insinuating my body into her space as Taylor places her back on the ground. A look of shock and then relief sweeps across her face.

I place my bag on the ground and wrap her in a hug. "Ethan. Oh, thank God!" Her body relaxes against me. A promising sign that her shock isn't going to debilitate her completely.

"What the fuck is going on, Ana? Who's this guy?" I look over her shoulder at Taylor who is looking at me suspiciously. I guess if your job depends on your ability to make sure that someone doesn't steal your boss's girlfriend from under his nose then you need to be a little cautious.

"Oh, sorry, Ethan, this is Taylor. He works with Christian. Taylor, this is Ethan, my roommate's brother." We nod each other. He knows who I am. He will have a file on me already. And I know him. Better than he would like.

"Ana, upstairs, what's going on? I was fishing for the apartment keys when these guys jumped out of nowhere and grabbed them. One of them was Christian…" She explains about Christian's ex going postal with an impressive amount of reserve. She really isn't giving much away at all. Eventually she is back in my arms sobbing her heart out and I can't help but feel it would be justice right now for Christian Grey to see his girl being comforted by another man. _What the fuck does he think he is doing up there?_

Having taken in the little scene as it unfolded inside the apartment getting Ana away from here is a priority. While Christian might have some degree of control over the situation, Leila Williams seems very unstable. Jason Taylor, like typical ex-military, looks anxious to get back amongst the action but there is no way that he going to leave Ana. I convince Ana to come with me. We go across the road to a bar for a drink while Grey and his man take care of Ms Williams.

My pocket is buzzing so I know that Rory is trying to get my attention. I also suspect that by now Mia is completely aware of what is happening. _Just hold on baby, I will contact you soon._ I get Ana settled at a table by the window so we can watch the action across the road. Her body is shaking and my biggest concern is her going into shock. Then I notice her hands clenched into fists and I can see that she is angry. Really angry. No shock here so I order beers and some bar snacks, knowing that the alcohol will be welcome but she isn't likely to touch the food.

We drink our first couple of beers in record time while I try to gently probe her for information. She doesn't give away very much which could be as a result of the NDA protocol that Grey has in place but in all the time I have known Ana, I have never known her to be one of those bitchy gossips that tells you their life story in the first fifteen minutes. Ana Steele could give some of Kate's more affluent friends a few lessons in class.

Leila is definitely going through some emotional trauma as a result of her boyfriend being killed in a car crash. She is projecting this on Christian, probably because she feels the need to have someone take care of her. From what I know about Christian Grey all she had to do was ask but her mind is too far gone for that. It annoys me that the agency could have got her off the streets a couple of weeks ago when she first came to our attention. There was no need for Ana to go through all of this angst. But since she wasn't a threat to national security, she falls out of our jurisdiction. I'm not paid to think about the ethics of the situation.

Finally, Christian has the girl bundled up and out of the apartment care of his shrink, John Flynn. Ana watches the scene unfolding carefully, with Christian emerging from the building with Leila in his arms. I hear her sharp intake of breath and see the color drain from her face. When they are gone she asks for something stronger to drink and I am happy to oblige.

When I return she takes a quick gulp then excuses herself to go to the bathroom. I take the opportunity to call Elliot and explain what is happening. If Christian has gone back to the apartment and found Ana isn't there then he is going to be out for blood and it will most likely be mine. On the other hand I am not going to make Ana leave if she has a need to simply get drunk. Elliot understands this and at least he knows that she is safe.

"Ethan, I owe you so much, man. Christian might be a prick about the whole thing but I trust you, man. Don't sweat it. Just look after our girl."

"Okay, I'll call you in an hour or so." I hang up just as Ana approaches the table again.

"Everything ok?" She nods and picks up the snifter of brandy again, this time taking a small slip. "Do you want to talk about him? I get the impression that he won't appreciate you being out with me."

The look she gives me is harsh and distant. "Right now I am not sure I care very much about his approval. And no, I don't think I want to talk about Christian."

I nod. The waitress comes over to clear our glasses and flirts for a moment while she takes another drinks order. As she walks away she presses a card into my hand. I glance down at it, a little stunned.

Ana giggles. "Oh, she was so into you. You are going to get lucky tonight. Let me see." She grabs it out of my hand before I can react and examines it.

"Oh my God! It's a hotel room access card! Jeez, how forward is that? How did she know that we weren't 'together'?" Now it is Ana's turn to look stunned. I quickly glance around the room and see a familiar leather-clad shadow in the corner. She stands up, holds her glass up to me in a salute before draining the contents and then walks out of the bar. Ana, luckily, is still focused on the card.

"I will take that." She looks at me as if I have grown horns. "No. I will pass it back to her when I pay the bill. I think that will be a strong enough message."

"Well, don't turn her down on my account." Our drinks arrive courtesy of another one of the waitstaff. The effects of the alcohol are taking hold with Ana so I order more food and settle in for another couple of hours of non-conversation.

Eventually she decides she is ready to go home. As the air hits her she becomes even more unsteady on her feet and I offer to go up to the Escala penthouse to help her face the music. She declines and I watch with some uncertainty as she staggers through the lobby to the elevator. I really shouldn't have let her drink so much.

On the way back to the hotel I text Elliot to let him know that Ana is home and Mia to let her know I am on my way. When I let myself into the room I hear the gentle strains of Diana Krall _Let's Do It Again_ and smell the exotic vanilla scented candles dotted around the room. Mia is nowhere to be seen.

"Honey, I'm home!" Then I hear the telltale sounds of hot-sexy-woman-in-bathtub.

"Come on in, babe. The water's fine." I push the door to the bathroom open and see my beautiful naked wife up to pussy's bow in bubbles and deliciousness. Christ, that looks good.

"Room enough for two in there?" She slides over and pats the water sending a slight splash of foam into the air. I strip off my clothes, knowing that I am already beginning to harden at the sight of her, and step into the bathtub.

"Here, turn around. Let me give you a rub." I turn and sit between her legs as her strong hands begin to work on my shoulders. Magical hands. I could almost fall asleep it has me so relaxed. "Baby had a hard night?"

"You said it." I sigh. Her fingers dig in hard biting my flesh and I jump. "Ease up a bit, baby."

"Oh, does that hurt?" She digs in again and too late, I realize that she is spitting mad. _What the fuck? _I reach down and grip her thigh muscle in a charlie horse. She yelps but she lets go of my shoulder. "Ow."

"Are you going to tell me what has you pissed?" I turn around to face her, splashing water out on the floor.

She pouts. "You spent all night in the company of a beautiful hot woman, buying her drinks and all I could do was sit and watch you. You didn't even notice I was there."

"Mia, I was doing my job. And that hot woman is my sister's best friend and your brother's girlfriend. She is like a sister to me. I wasn't about to leave her alone when your brother had just abandoned her on the street to go look after his freaky ex-sub." I catch the look in her eye and see that I have gone too far.

"Christian did what he had to do. And I bet he didn't abandon her. Taylor was with her, wasn't he?"

We stare at each other angrily for a moment before I speak. "Yes, Taylor was with her but Christian should have called the police. He isn't qualified to handle Leila's mental state nor should he have confronted a woman with a gun."

"Are you going to tell me that if someone was holding a gun on me that you wouldn't try to do something about it?"

"Don't turn my words. Yes, I would take a bullet for you. But I am trained to do that."

"So you would do it as a trained agent but not as my husband?" This is getting out of hand. She keeps twisting my words.

"That is not what I meant and you know it. I would do anything for you. I would give my life for you. Nothing would stand in my way. But as an agent, we have protocols to follow and by anyone's book what Christian did tonight was stupid and reckless. He should have called the police and not tried to be a fucking hero. If he had done that I would not have had to spend the night drinking in a bar with a woman who is not my wife and we would not be having this fucking argument."

Suddenly she giggles. "We're having our first fight."

"This isn't our first fight, Mia." I sigh running a wet hand through my hair.

"It's our first fight as a couple." She peers up at me with that super sexy smile that has me immediately reaching for my nether regions. _Pussy-whipped and loving it, Kavanagh?_

"Baby, you know I would give my left testicle to only ever have to spend my time with you. No woman has ever or will ever come close to you. I have loved you since you were 15 years old and I can't imagine a day when I won't feel like my world begins and ends with you."

Her eyes water up and she reaches her hands out to pull my face towards her for a kiss. What should be a romantic make up moment turns into strangled battle not to drown as I lose my balance and fall face first into her chest forcing us both down under the water. When we emerge with a splutter we both have bubble foam sticking out at odd angles from our heads. _Smooth, Kavanagh._ We burst out laughing.

"Come here, minx." I pull her up to straddle my lap. She wraps her legs around my waist and her hands around my head as we reinstate our kiss. This time with perfect balance and a deathly slow grind below the water I taste her lips, her tongue, her teeth, savoring every morsel. Her hands in my hair begin to gently massage my scalp sending delightfully sensual shocks down my spine.

I let my hands roam over her back, ensuring that I get those spots that make her move involuntarily. The tender zone down the side of her rib cage just below her armpits has her pressing her breasts firmly against my chest. A touch of the shapely form of her hips has her writhing on my lap in a gentle wave. The sensitive flesh where her ass meets the top of her thigh causes her to thrust her hips into my lower belly. When I slide my hand down her upper leg and hit the skin behind her knee she arches her back with a groan and it opens her up enough that I can slide home.

"That feel okay, babe?" I gave her no warning before I entered her. Not verbal anyway. Even though we both were heading in this direction I never want to take sex for granted.

"You know it is." Her eyes fix on mine and without saying another word we watch each other carefully as we start to move. Her pupils are fully dilated. Her lips are slightly parted allowing her to alternate from slipping her tongue across them to biting them as the intensity builds. At least this time, after an afternoon of making love to her and a night fueled by one too many drinks, I won't be racing to the finish line. This time we can take it slow.

Her stomach muscles are working overtime as she raises and lowers herself on my cock. I help her out with my hands but she does all the hard work and she looks so fucking amazing as she does, her whole torso undulating in waves, a light sweat breaking out across her chest. The hard pebbles of her breasts offer themselves enticingly to me and I break our gaze for a moment to suckle on them, licking and laving the areola of each one until the telltale bumps appear. I pull back a fraction to blow warm air on them and she lets out a little hiss that makes me return my gaze to her eyes again.

We both watch carefully. The flush creeps up her body and her movement gets more frantic. Her hand reaches down between us to touch herself and it seems that is just enough. I feel her muscles tighten around me, a gently squeezing pulse that builds as she comes.

"I love you." Her whisper, so sincere, falls from her lips with a gasp. "I love you. Always you."

My own orgasm follows closely and I marvel at how right this feels. My Mia, always so beautiful, so sensual, so passionate. I could spend the rest of my days worshiping her and never get enough. Pulling her hard down on to me as I explode inside her has me gasping for air.

Her hands are back on my head, pushing the hair back. I place my hand on the back of her neck and pull her in for a kiss. She presses her lips softly against mine with a smile and then we pull back again to look at each other.

"Always you, Mia. I will always love you." These words will come back to us over the next couple of days. They might be the only thing that stop us both from going a little crazy.


	12. Chapter 11 When You Hurt Me The Most

_**The air was cold**_  
_**The night I fled**_  
_**Your eyes were more**_  
_**Than I could take**_  
_**I ran so fast**_  
_**I ran like hell**_  
_**And still wasn't able to escape**_

_**The picture's still fixed in my head**_  
_**The stage was all set at my request**_  
_**You took the roll**_  
_**You played it well**_  
_**I knew it would be easy for you**_

_**Strike me harder now**_  
_**Push me to the ground**_

_**Pain is sweeter**_  
_**Coming from your hand**_  
_**I love you**_  
_**When you hurt me the most**_

_**So fell the lash, repeatedly**_  
_**The icy words cut me deep, and still**_  
_**I begged for more**_  
_**You gave no less**_  
_**Surrendering fully to the game**_  
_**You took control**_  
_**I took the blame**_  
_**You had enough so you looked away**_  
_**Deprived of love, deprived of pain**_  
_**No choice but to keep on sinking**_

_**Stream of Passion - When you Hurt me the Most**_

* * *

_Seattle, 2007_

_ "Young lady, you are not going. Paris is no place for an 18 year old girl on her own." Her father was actually starting to turn red. They had been arguing back and forth about this for weeks and getting nowhere. In the end, it didn't matter what he said, the agency would get her out of the country but she wanted to leave with her cover intact. However, her father's resistance was causing her a headache and his small mindedness was getting on her last nerve._

_ "I am fully capable of looking after myself. The cooking school has arranged accommodation and I will be so busy learning about the hospitality industry that I won't have time to get into any trouble. I don't see what your problem is. When Christian was my age you were happy to have him move across the country on his own, what is the difference?"_

_ "The difference is that he remained on American soil. The difference is that he needed his independence." His voice was escalating as it always did at this point. "The difference is that…'_

_ "He is a boy!" They glared at each other angrily across the room. "Jeez, Dad. I'm surprised that you let Mom go out to work. Should I be learning to embroider doilies and paint watercolors with a private tutor for the next four years? Or do you think that the fancy overseas cooking school is just a little too much for a girl who will be staying at home and cooking for her husband and your grandchildren?"_

_ "Mia, don't be dramatic and unfair. Of course, I take your cooking seriously but you flit from one thing to another. This could just be another hobby that you give up on when it gets too hard. If that happens I don't like the thought of you being in a foreign country on your own."_

_ "You keep saying this but it doesn't sound very racially tolerant of you Dad. What is wrong with the French? I mean, it is not as if I don't speak the language." She knows why he is hesitating. She knows that he is hiding this hideous secret from the world. She could care less if revealing it to the world will hurt him or anyone else involved. As far as she was concerned, they had fucked her over years ago. He could rot in hell for all she cared._

_ "Don't get smart, Mia. You are too young to move to a foreign country on your own. You have just graduated high school and that hasn't been a roaring success. You can go to culinary school in America and that is the end of it." There it was. The lawyer measured all of them by some sort of insane academic yardstick and found each of them wanting in some way, well, with the possible exception of Christian who was smart but simply chose not to complete. The almighty Carrick Grey nearly burst a blood vessel over that one._

_ The fact that her father had no idea just how smart she was didn't really bother her. He had no inkling that she had just topped her year and graduated with honors in Mathematics and Computer Science from WSU because he was too self-absorbed to know __**how**__ she had spent her days for the past three years. And that was because he had thought she was too young to attend college when she turned 15 in the first place. Always too young. He thought he had won that battle but she had defied him and taken the agency offer to cover her tracks while she attended to her college studies. She could hate them for a lot of things but at least they had prevented her from being bored out of her tree. Now her father seemed to have some archaic vision of her spending the next four years of study looking for a husband. Well, he could get fucked as far as she was concerned. He hadn't wanted to tell the world that she was his legitimate daughter so he could rot in hell._

_ "I'm 18 years old. I don't really need your permission anymore." Technically, she could simply walk out and never look back. Just once she would have liked for him to notice her. To see the woman she had become. To realize that she was fully capable of deciding her own future. In the end, it wasn't that important. He had lost any right to pass judgment on her a long time ago._

_ "No, you don't need my permission but you do need my funding." _

_ "I'll ask Christian." Christian had just made his second million, he was good for it._

_ "You don't have a current passport." And that was why they were here. He wanted to protect himself and his big secret. Well, he could go fuck himself and use his big secret to do it._

_ "Give me my birth certificate and I will get one." I dare you._

_ "No. I will not." What followed was unavoidable and the train was well and truly on the way out of the station. Her last thought before launching into her tirade was that he had brought this on himself._

_ "Is that because you're afraid that I will discover who my real parents are?" She watched as he stepped away, physically blanching at her words. The color drained from his face and a real look of fear replaced the look of anger that had been there before. "Don't worry yourself about it. I already know, I've known for years."_

_ Their bodies stilled as they eyed each other off like feral cats about to strike. "What exactly do you think you know, Mia?"_

_ "It's alright…Dad…I already know that you are my real father, although I will never understand why you hated me enough to want me to think I was adopted. Quite frankly I don't care if you think you've had good motive, I don't care if it is the best damn motive in the world. The point is that you chose to make me believe that you and Mom adopted me as a baby. But that isn't the truth is it? Do you have any idea what a mixed fucking message that one is Daddy dearest?" His color goes to a deep purple as she spits the endearment out sarcastically. "What was it? You wanted to see how I would turn out before you told the world? Just in case I was a colossal fuck up? Or was it just too hideous a thought to admit that you fucked your wife's best friend all those years ago?"_

_ As quick as a flash his hand snaked out and slapped her across the face. The tears came unbidden and she fought to force them back as she clutched her reddened cheek. They froze in action, her glaring with disbelief while he stared at her in horror. If anyone had been looking they would have seen how much the daughter looked like the father right down to the mirrored stance and body language. Mia felt like she was looking at some hideous stranger._

_ "Mia, I'm…" He made as if to pull her into an embrace but her hands shot up in front of her body, defensively as she back away._

_ "Don't…touch…me." Pure unadulterated hatred filtered into her eyes taking the wind out of his sails. "Don't you ever touch me again."_

_ With as much calm as she could muster, she walked over to the safe and opened it while he stared on in agony. Taking out her birth certificate and her expired passport she tucked them both into her pocket before turning on her heel and walking out of the study. Carrick Grey sank down onto his knees in the middle of the floor. His body held in defeat at the thought that he had just hit his own child. Bowing his head in despair he let his tears flow knowing that Mia would never forgive him and he would never forgive himself. With his head bowed he missed the angry tears that Mia wiped away with the heel of her hand and her sorrowful glance back at him as she closed the door._

* * *

Sirens Club, Seattle 2011

Walking into the club complex is not the worst part of the evening although it is still very confronting wearing the costume that Elena has chosen for me. No, the worst part is seeing my husband standing at the bar as he recognizes me and knowing that at some point I am going to have to turn around and walk away.

He straightens away from the bar as he sees me and I give a quick shake of my head. Elena has me firmly in her grasp as she issues her instructions.

"I am going to have to mingle for a while. I don't want you present for that part of the evening. The less you know about the identities of the people here tonight the better. I want you to lay low and wait by the bar for me. In an hour I will take you downstairs for your first training session."

I watch her as she walks across the room toward a power table. Having already seen a first draft of the guest list tonight I know there are at least two senators on that table as well as a couple of high profile CEOs, a high court judge and someone who looks like a foreign sheik. One of the senators stands and welcomes her to the table where she takes a seat and accepts a drink. It looks like she isn't going anywhere for a while and the boys in the van outside will give me a relay of the conversation if there is anything I need to immediately know. Of course, that is if they can get any reception with the constant noise of her pvc evening dress.

Taking the opportunity I wander over to where Ethan stands. He is giving every impression of being totally hammered so I keep a little distance being careful not to turn around.

"Tell me, is that what they're wearing in the smarter sets this year." The slurred words barely hide his anger. I can understand why. When Elena had first shown me the outfit I had railed against it. Here she is in a fairly normal, apart from the pvc element, evening dress that while figure hugging at least would have been acceptable at the usual public gathering. Here I am in what could loosely be termed a black pvc cat suit - probably my fault because given the choice of a dress and pants I had foolishly chosen pants - that go from full leg coverings to bare scraps of material that criss-cross my torso and strain to keep my breasts in check.

"Don't get on your high horse. All the important parts are covered." _Like my face._ Elena had had the good grace to allow me to wear a half mask and a blonde ponytail wig. I don't think my own mother would recognize me if she had been the one to choose the outfit in the first place. _Please don't look behind, please don't look behind, please don't look behind._

"Turn around," he growls. He is fuming.

_Fuck no!_ "What?" _Oh God, he is going to kill me, or her. Or both of us._

"You heard me, sweetheart. Turn around, I wanna see what I might be buying later." _Oh, heck. _

"It's just a costume. There's no need to get your knickers in a twist." I place my hand on the bar in an act of defiance but he sweeps it off and growls again.

"Turn around." Very slowly I turn away from him and I hear the sharp intake of breath from every man with in twenty feet of me. "What the fuck is that?"

"My ass. What did you think it was?" I reply defiantly. Knowing what he is looking at, what they are all looking at I bend forward slightly and arch my back so that they can all get a good view. There is very little to the back of the costume. What there is is a big gaping cut out that reveals the top half of my ass crack. I could kill that bitch Elena but right now I have to play this so as not blow our cover. "Do you like what you see…Sir."

Looking back over my shoulder I bat my eyelashes a couple of times before lowering my gaze to his crotch. Yeah, he likes it alright. When he notices the attention we are getting he moves closer in behind me.

"I am going to kill her. And then I am going to take you over my knee and give you a spanking that will make your skin red and my hand ache. Do you understand me?" I have never seen Ethan this mad before. It's kinda hot.

Just at that moment the lights go down and a Pretenders song booms through the speakers. I focus on the stage as the lights come up to see a couple in full body leotards that make them look nude, lying in the middle of the stage. Their routine is mesmerizing as they go from an erotic dance on the ground to an aerial hoop routine that stops just short of mid-air sex.

"Wow. They're breathtaking. And so hot."

"Yeah, well don't get too excited. That's your brother and my sister up there."

"Ew. I was just thinking about switching sides for her. Now I think I can taste a little sick in my mouth." I pull a face and he laughs as he moves in behind me and places his hands on my hips. The hole in my costume gives me a very clear feeling of his erection pressed against me. "Ethan, don't, we shouldn't be seen together."

"It's okay, baby. The room is dark. No one can see us," he whispers in my ear. I suck in a breath as his hand strays to the naked flesh, well, let's face it, large parts of me are naked. My hardened nipples are doing weird things to the material and I wonder if it will go back into shape when I calm down. "You look fucking amazing, Mia. You have no idea how much I want you right now and I wish none of these pricks could see any of this. Promise me, always mine."

"Always." I murmur letting my head tip back against his shoulder. "Always you, always yours."

His lips are on my earlobes driving me insane and we almost don't notice the act drawing to a close and we are standing way too close as the lights come up. At that moment Elena storms over to us with a face like a thunder cloud.

"Get your hands off her. She is not for sale." The words sound like icicles falling off her tongue. I could almost feel that she cared but I'm not delusional. Instead I step away from Ethan and lower my eyes.

"Hey look, lady. Not my fault. She certainly looks like she's on the market. Pity." Ethan begins slurring again and swaying a little on his feet for good measure.

"Well, she's not." Elena turns from Ethan to me, almost presenting her back to him. She is nothing if not the height of rudeness and disdain. "It's time to go downstairs."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun. Can I come?" Ethan moves to get in her face.

"You couldn't afford her, little man," she says dismissively.

"I can afford to pay." He pulls out a large wad of cash and starts to thumb his way through the roll of notes.

"Please, sir." I place my hand over his and allow him to look me directly in the eye. To anyone else he looks unfocused but I can see that he is shrewdly trying to assess what I want him to do. "I have work to do. Perhaps another time."

Eventually, he nods and puts the money back in his pocket. "Pity. We could have had a good time, little one." He has straightened his stance considerably and is presenting a force of will that I don't often get to see. He is trying to project something to me and to Elena but I don't understand what this is. I am just hoping that he will let me go. His hand is under my chin, he is dominating the space and his eyes flit back to Elena with a hardness that is almost unrecognizable. She gives the barest of flinches back then quickly recovers her equilibrium. "If she comes on the market, I want to know."

His voice is so hard that I find myself involuntarily cowering even though his hand is still gently under my chin. I keep my eyes lowered to the embarrassing scene of my husband facing off against my mother.

"Come Mimi. Your lesson begins soon." She holds her hand out to me. Before I can take it, Ethan lifts my chin so that I am looking at him. He slides his hand to my cheek and caresses it softly. I can't help but lean into it slightly.

"Go, little one. But if you change your mind, or if you need me, I will be here for you. In spite of all appearances, I will always be good to you. I will always take care of you. Always."

I hold his gaze for a moment before turning to join my mother. As we walk away I turn and mouth the word 'always' to him.

Elena drags me through the room towards a door marked private on the other side. We step through and walk across a small space to an elevator. Once inside we descend two levels. This must be the bowels of Club Orpheus. When the doors open we are faced with a plush reception area that is swathed in red suede from the square shaped sofas to the cushioned walls. The ceilings are draped with sheer black fabric, matching the highly glossed reception desk. There are two bouncers on the doors even though there is no one coming and going like the upstairs clubs. A very professionally attired and stunningly beautiful red head is manning the reception desk and greets us with a smile.

"Good evening, Mrs Lincoln. Your room is waiting for you, no. 21. If you would swipe your card here please."

Elena swipes a black and red credit card through a machine and then presses her thumb against a small screen. A light in the corner turns green. I look over the shoulder of the young woman for the technology that runs this system but there is nothing else on the desk except a phone.

We walk past the bouncers who step back almost in deference to Elena and soon we are heading down a dimly lit corridor. There are sconces low on the black walls and pin spots on tracks on the high black ceiling that are spaced evenly down the long space. They are not so much for lighting the space but for highlighting a series of white sculptures dotted along the wall. As I look at them more closely I notice that they are series of plaster cast vaginas, all unique and different. I've never thought about the differences between women's vaginas but I am totally intrigued that out of the twenty or so that hung down this corridor, not one of them is the same to any other.

We arrive at room 21 and walk into a small entry foyer. To the left is a viewing booth. We go through a second door into a cavernous space. Around the room is a variety of equipment that I recognize and which quite frankly scares the shit out of me. In the center of the room is a large four poster bed that is angled with the head higher than the base. I have a vision of satin sheets and a lot of gravity that almost makes me giggle but I hold it back. Sitting in a reading chair in the corner is Isaac, Elena's current partner, reading Dostoyevsky by reading lamp. He is wearing black jeans, no shirt and bare feet, his reading glasses perched on his nose.

Isaac smiles and looks ready to greet me when Elena walks into the middle of the room and snaps her fingers. Immediately Issac is on his feet. He walks into the center of the room where she is standing and drops to the floor at her feet his head bowed and his hands on his knees.

"Mia. Behind you is the viewing room. I want you to go in there and watch the scene. You are not to leave there under any circumstances no matter what you see. Do you understand?" I nod and turn to leave the room. Part of me is hoping that I can just shut my eyes through her damn scene but I know I have to learn.

Once inside the room I settle into a chair to watch the show. What occurs over the next hour is mind blowing and not at all what I expect. Elena, who I have always seen as so cold and hard treats Isaac with an uncommon kindness even while inflicting pain. But what I see isn't really about pain, it is about sensation and this incredible amount of trust. I have no doubt that he is pushed to sensory limits and I can certainly see the evidence of the session on his skin but Elena appears astutely aware of his state of mind. She reads him like a book and even at times when he begs for more she pulls back and changes direction. It is like she knows what he needs better than he does.

I try very hard not to notice how deeply aroused he is and several times I think that she is going to make him orgasm and orgasm hard. In the end, there is never a time when she directly touches him or allows him to directly touch her. I have no doubt that what I am watching is their version of foreplay but there is nothing overtly sexual in the demonstration for which I am extremely grateful. In fact, as it progresses, it seems as if Isaac had gone into some kind of pheromone induced trance.

After an hour Elena stops the scene, walking over to the phone on the wall. Within moments the young woman from reception arrives in the room beside me.

"Miss Grey. Mrs Lincoln has asked that I escort you to the bar. She has asked you to wait for her there. She won't be long."

I didn't want to imagine what Elena and Isaac were doing right now and I am happy for the distraction of the bar. The bar itself is empty and there is very little visible movement in and out of the rooms. I guess that most of the members are upstairs taking part in the slave auction. Instead of waiting I make out that I am looking for the bathroom and given the state of this suit I figure no one would suspect if I take a little longer than usual.

When the coast is clear I walk back down the corridor listening for the telltale hum of a server room. It doesn't take long to locate what I am looking for, a low even noise and a cool door. I quickly pick the lock and move inside the air-conditioned room. There is nowhere on this costume that I can store any equipment so I have to go old school and hack into the server. Luckily, whoever set up the security isn't very sophisticated and it doesn't take too long to get to where I need in the hard drive. Once there I set up a hidden process to copy data across to a remote server whenever the system runs a backup. This way we will get updated data on membership and video surveillance at the end of every day.

I get back to the bar before Elena and Issac arrive. This time Isaac is in a very stylish suit, looking every inch the business man. He smiles when he sees me.

"Mimi, how are you, my darling?" Isaac still has the hint of an accent even though he has been in Seattle for the last fifteen years. He is of Russian Jewish descent but raised in Israel by his Russian grandparents. His fluency in several languages are his bread and butter as an independent immigration consultant. I really like him and I have often wondered what he is doing with someone like Elena. However, the scene I just witnessed gives me a different dynamic.

"Isaac, it is good to see you. I missed you at the house earlier." Elena and I had had dinner and then prepared for the evening. Isaac phoned as we were about to sit down to say he was held up and would meet us at the club.

"Yes, a client needing some urgent advice. I apologize. You know I would never blow off dinner with my best girl." His broad smile sparkles behind his eyes. He is only twelve years older than me but he acts like he is already my benevolent stepfather. I wonder if he knows about my relationship with Elena. "So tell me, did you find our scene… informative?"

"I am almost embarrassed to talk about it but yes, it was not what I expected."

Taking my hands he drags me down to a couch as Elena, strangely confined, sits in a winged chair across from us. She observes as Isaac takes charge of the conversation. "Now tell me, in what way was it unexpected?"

I pause, gathering my thoughts. "I didn't expect to see that level of…care. The scenes that I had witnessed in Paris were overtly sexual and almost violent. I sensed something else between you. Some stronger emotion."

They look at each other with warmth. I have never really seen that from Elena. She looks at Christian like she owns him, not like she loves him or even wants him. With Isaac there is a depth. I hesitate to call it love, even in my head. Isaac on the other hand is easy to read. His heart is on his sleeve and it is clear that whatever the physical side of their relationship might offer, he is deeply in love with her. A little kernel of hope sows its seed in me but when I look at her again, her eyes go cold and she almost turns away.

"What you saw is a deep respect and trust for what we offer each other. Elena and I have particular needs but we both know how to care for those needs on behalf of each other." _Oh my friend, you have it bad._ Perhaps it is the emotional aftermath of the scene. "For me to have those needs fulfilled I have to trust Elena completely, and I do."

He reaches over and takes Elena's hand. For a fleeting second the emotion reaches her eyes and then it is gone again. "Can I ask something personal?"

"My sweet, you have seen us at our most vulnerable. I think you know that you can ask us anything."

"Is it the only way that you can have a sexual relationship? Is there nothing vanilla?" He looks a little startled by the question but not offended.

"Our sexual relationship is decidedly vanilla. We enjoy our play regularly and it can lead to sex but it is not the only way for us."

"Isaac. I am not sure we need to talk about this. She is here to be trained as a sub. She doesn't need to know the sordid details."

"She is here to learn about the lifestyle. How can she learn if she doesn't hear about the nuances. There are so many misconceptions it would be unfortunate if we didn't let her know the un-sordid details." There is some sort of standoff going on here that has nothing to do with me. Once more I wonder about the fact that Isaac is doing all of the talking. Elena is not known for her retiring nature.

"So tonight was not about sex?" I wonder about what happened after I left the room. I had simply assumed that they had done the deed and then come to join me in the bar.

"Not at all. What did you see when you watched me?"

"You seemed to respond positively to Elena's attentions." I think back at the use of the flogger and the cat. She had worked up and down his body, never hitting the same point twice, deadly accurate but firm. But what had I seen in him. "You seemed to be feeling the pain for a long time and then something changed. You went from intense to serene. Like you were in a state of meditation."

"You are very observant. That is exactly right. I went into subspace."

"I have heard of that. Do you have a more intense sexual experience with subspace?"

"Sometimes. The longer we have been together, the less we need the sexual experience at all." This I had not expected and Elena looks decidedly uncomfortable. "Subspace is exactly as you say, a trance. A meditative state. It is blissful and addictive. It does however preclude sex. It is impossible to orgasm when in subspace and quite frankly it is unnecessary. The chemical release in the brain is more than enough."

"So when I left the room tonight…"

"Elena stayed with me to assist me to come back to consciousness. She has a certain patience that is necessary." Once more I am completely confused. This is not the Elena I assumed I knew and I can see from her body language that it is not what she wants me see. I think back to what I saw the night I followed Christian here. He did not look anything like Isaac. There was no love there. Respect yes but not the look I see in this man's eyes.

"Thank you Isaac. Thank you for your honesty."

"You are welcome, darling girl. Now I must go back and retrieve my book. It is a first edition, I would hate to lose it." He stands to leave but leans over Elena, planting a gentle kiss on her head. She smiles. "I will see you at home, my love."

After he has gone Elena leans back in the chair, her legs crossed, her hands clasped in front of her face. She stares at me with curiosity and I almost feel myself crumbling under her regard.

"Are you going to tell me why you want to know all of this? Why do you want to know more about this lifestyle?"

"What makes you so sure I am not interested in the lifestyle?" Her eyes are hard again. The old Elena is truly back in the room. It sends a shiver down my spine.

"You are not cut out for it. When that dom at the bar had you pinned you were ready to stand up to him. You don't have what it takes to be a domme yourself but you certainly don't have the humility to be a sub either. You're still too flighty, too strong willed. More importantly you don't trust easily."

"What do you expect, Mother? At what stage do you and my parents think that you had instilled trust in me?"

She smirks at me. "See, no humility. Who is he?"

"I beg your pardon?" Not that I am not grateful for her not taking the bait but this just got weird.

"The only reason why you would be wanting this for yourself is because you have fallen for some man. Someone in the lifestyle who you want to impress. This isn't a game Mia. This isn't one of your little whims. If he wants you to be submissive then you are going to have to commit and you my dear have never committed to anything in your life. So I will ask you once again. Who is he?"

I hesitate. Shit, now I am going to have to…

"It's him isn't it?" Now what the hell is she talking about? "The man at the bar."

What? "I don't…" She means Ethan. She thinks Ethan is a dom.

"It was obvious what he is but now it makes sense why he was so interested in you."

"Yes. It's him." _Oh, crap. Ethan is going to kill me._ "I…I'm in love with him but he…"

"I didn't ask if you love him. That will only complicate things. What is his name?"

"Ethan. Ethan Kavanagh."

She taps the arm of the leather chair for a moment with one of her long talons and then smiles. "Well. It would seem to me that if you really want to learn then we are going to have to work up to a demonstration for Mr Kavanagh that will peak his interest."

_Oh fuck!_


	13. Chapter 12 I Bruise Easily

_**A/N: Thanks for the continued love and support for these stories. I don't like to ask this but it has been a long and angsty week both IRL and in FF world. So if you are feeling inclined, a word or two to tell me your thoughts on where the story is going would be appreciated. I have a good chapter coming next (I think it is anyway) and I might actually reward myself by putting it up earlier rather than later so please watch out for it. Love you all. Sasha x**_

* * *

_**My skin is like a map, of where my heart has been  
And I can't hide the marks, but it's not a negative thing  
So I let down my guard, drop my defenses, down by my clothes  
I'm learning to fall, with no safety net, to cushion the blow**_

_**I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me**_  
_**There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved (DOWN) a tree**_  
_**I bruise easily, you can scratch the surface without moving me**_  
_**Underneath**_  
_**I bruise easily, I bruise easily**_

_**I've found your fingerprints on a glass of wine**_  
_**Do you know you're leaving them all over this heart of mine, too**_  
_**But if I never take this leap of faith, I'll never know**_  
_**So I'm learning to fall with no safety net to cushion the blow**_

_**I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me**_  
_**There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved (DOWN) a tree**_  
_**I bruise easily, you can scratch the surface without moving me**_  
_**Underneath**_  
_**I bruise easily, I bruise easily**_

_**Anyone who**_  
_**Can touch you**_  
_**Can hurt you**_  
_**Or heal you.**_  
_**Anyone who**_  
_**Can reach you**_  
_**Can love you**_  
_**Or leave you...**_

_**So be gentle**_

_**I bruise easily - Natasha Bedingfield**_

* * *

_Seattle 2002_

_Ever since Christian came home for the break he has been so secretive. He won't even go running with her, preferring his own company for hours on end. If Auntie Elena had been here Mia would have asked her to talk to him but she was away at a convention in Las Vegas and was only arriving home today._

_Mia was tempted several times that day to pick up the phone to talk with Elena. Her mother's friend was often the foil between Mia and her family as the hormones of adolescence kicked in. But every time she picked up the phone one of her parents would have some urgent task that they needed her to attend to. _

_Late in the afternoon Christian announced that he was going out and would probably not be home for dinner. Mia had already arranged to spend the night at Lily's house so her mother asked him to walk her there on his way to wherever he was going. Christian begrudgingly agreed to take her. He was in a foul mood._

_"Do you want to play tennis tomorrow?" _

_"No, I will most likely be out tomorrow." That was the sum total of the conversation until they stopped outside Lily's house. With tears threatening she ran towards the door as he stalked off down the road. Instead of going inside Mia dumped her overnight bag down the side of the house and followed him the six blocks to Auntie Elena's house._

_At first she considered walking up to the door and knocking after she saw him go inside. But then he didn't go in the front door as she expected. He went down the side and let himself in through the laundry. That wasn't so odd. What was odd was that he had a key. Mia searched for an open window without much success until she finally saw some movement through the window that she knew was a guest bedroom. _

_Careful not to make any noise, she maneuvered herself past the trellis wall and peered over the edge of the window frame. She expected to see Auntie Elena or Christian or both. What she didn't expect was to see a girl who she knew worked at Auntie Elena's salon. This girl had long dark hair and big brown eyes. It was lucky her hair was so long because she wasn't wearing anything except underwear and she was kneeling on the floor at the end of the bed. _

_A moment later the bedroom door opened and Elena walked in with Christian behind her. She was wearing a tight black leather dress and her hair was tied up in a high ponytail. Christian had taken off his shoes and socks and his shirt. They looked odd, very mean and angry. The girl on the floor, Michelle, Mia thought, kept her head down as if she was afraid to look at them. Elena went to her and began to braid her hair, starting the work before handing over to Christian to finish. Mia knew he was good at braiding hair because he sometimes did hers when he was home._

_The girl made no move to cover herself and Mia felt herself getting warm and tingly down there watching her. Then Christian seemed to ask her to stand up. He took the scarf from the holder that Elena had always had on the wall and tied her hands together in front of her body and then to a ring itself. Mia had often looked at that scarf and ring and thought how pretty it was but how strange that it was placed so high on the wall. Now the girl was almost suspended from it she wondered if she had misunderstood what it was for._

_Elena had gone to the tall ornate chest of drawers that stood against the wall and taken out some items to lay on the bed. From where she stood Mia could make out a long stick, something that looked like a short whip and a feather. She went back to the drawer to take out something else and Mia saw her hand Christian a bottle. He quickly poured liquid from the bottle onto his hand and passed it back to Elena as he rubbed his hands together._

_Mia was dumbstruck when Christian approached the girl and began to rub her body with oil. The girl writhed on the ring, her hips thrusting forward as he touched her. Without warning he smacked her hard and then leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Mia jumped with the shock of the slap and then noticed the girl nod and make her body very still. He tried again to rub her and once again she moved. Mia wasn't surprised, she felt herself wanting to move too. Then the slap came again as a sharp retort that she heard through the closed window. The girl's body sagged a little, he must have hurt her._

_Watching was making Mia feel both sick and warm. She didn't know what her body was reacting to but the pattern of rubbing and writhing, smacking and whispering was bringing such a warmth between her legs and she ached to touch herself there. Just as she was about to place her hand between her legs, Christian placed his hand inside the girl's panties and began to rub back and forth. Mia felt short of breath as her own blood pulsed. Meanwhile Elena just stood and watched, guiding them from the side._

_He left his hand between the girl's legs as he pulled her panties down her legs, kissing her all the way. Mia looked away, not wanting to see her brother do those things. After a while she looked back, just in time to see him reach back and take the whip from Elena's outstretched hand. The whip was nothing like anything she had ever seen before and as Christian gently pulled it back and forth across the skin of the girl's back she could see that it was like lots of soft whips attached to the stick. As she wondered about what it was called he began to hit the girl with the soft tendrils, criss__-__crossing her skin in a careful pattern. _

_The girl jumped with each lick of the whip and Mia became concerned that Christian was hurting her. After a while he stopped hitting her and passed the apparatus back to Elena who then handed him the stick. Mia felt the horror rising in her throat. Until now she had thought she was the sick one for watching them playing like this. Now she wanted to look away from what she knew he was about to do but found she couldn't. She was the rabbit caught in the headlights and as the first strike of the cane marked the girl's pale skin with a vicious welt, the girl screamed and Mia cried. _

* * *

Seattle 2011

"What? No, shit no!" The walls of the safe house are closing in on me. I can't do this. I would never get away with it. Just thinking through the psychology of the whole thing has me on edge. I don't know what has gotten into Mia to have put us in this position nor do I understand why Elena thinks this is who I am but the whole idea is absurd. My role is to observe, not to go deep cover. Pacing back and forth across the room is making me dizzy. There isn't enough air in here.

"Ethan, Elena has pegged you as a dom. I don't get it but that is what she saw. While there is a lot about the woman that can't be trusted I believe that she has an insight and instinct where this is concerned." I stare at the wall, temporarily frozen, wishing that for once Mia would just shut the fuck up. Rory is ready to jump all over this idea and she is just feeding him all the right ammunition to put a direct order in place.

"And what if I fuck this up? What if I can't be the one who hurts you? The one who forces and humiliates you. Then our cover will be blown. You need someone who knows how to do this."

"Well, as much as I am going to learn a lot by watching Elena and Isaac, it just won't be the same as being dominated myself and I can't ask my own mother to do that now, can I?" Jesus, this was her idea in the first place, hers and Rory's. They insisted on doing this and now the whole fucking thing was about to blow up in our faces.

"Look, you got nothing out of Linc last night except to let him know that you exist. We need a new strategy and Elena has just handed it to us on a plate." Rory, all 6ft 3 inches of him is leaning against the wall watching us as we bicker back and forth. The guy could be a GQ model which makes him the ultimate weapon in the field. Men and women swoon over him and drop secrets as quick as they drop their pants. Three years ago he got shot in the line of duty and he has been relegated to a supervision role ever since. If half the rumors about him are true then it is a huge waste to the nation.

"That's easy for you to say." I keep my voice low hoping that I'm not coming across as the kind of jackass namby-pamby coward that I think I am. After all, the issue isn't my lack of experience going deep, nor is it that I don't have enough knowledge of the psychology of a dom. In the end, my hesitation is physiological and the root of it is sitting in that chair with her arms and legs crossed firing daggers at me.

"Alright, if you're going to be a fucking wimp about this then we go to plan B." Rory shifts away from his post and walks over to where Mia is sitting. His massive arms take his weight as he leans down and rests his hands on either side of her. The barely suppressed challenge in his eyes is made all the more threatening and malevolent by the low light cast shadows across his face. "Kavanagh, you can start to introduce me around and I will take on the dom role."

"No!" Mia and I simultaneously shout without thinking and Rory lets out a low chuckle as he straightens up without taking his eyes off Mia. Well, don't that beat all. The prick was just baiting us. He walks around the table and stands right in front of me. His next words are for both of us but he is directing them at my face.

"Thought not. Whatever is going on between you two, has the potential to make this work… or to destroy this investigation. So you better make your fucking minds up which one it is cos we are running out of time. Now, would you ladies like some alone time so you can work out which one of you gets to wear the dress?"

Now this prick is just pushing my fucking buttons. He might be built but I've got at least twenty pounds and two inches on him which I draw up into fighting stance, step protectively in front of Mia and level a glare at him. There is no way that this bastard is going near her. I've never been an aggressive person. I've never needed to be but the aggression is radiating off us both in waves and I'm not backing down. He might be my boss but Mia is mine. I lost her once, I'm not fucking going there again. The ice in his stare is, I hope, quickly matched by my own. God knows I am trying damn hard not to blink. Suddenly it occurs to me what I am looking at. This isn't Rory or my supervisor. This is the pure testosterone-driven challenge of male to male. He wants me to fight for my woman. Well, game on buddy.

Holding my ground gets easier with this recognition. I am not letting him touch her. My hand clenches and unclenches at my side and I hope like hell I don't have to punch that dominant world-is-mine look off his face and end up on an insubordination charge. The pissing contest drags out for another minute or so before the look in his eyes changes from pure challenge to something akin to grudging respect. He nods and steps back from me giving me a moment to suck in some much needed air.

"Alright. That was easier than I thought. Grey, I want you and lover boy to meet me back here in four days." The question is forming on her lips but I put my hand out to silence her. I sense her gasping like a fish out of water but she obeys and finally closes her mouth.

"We'll be here." His eyes still haven't left mine, even while he was issuing orders to Mia. He nods again before turning back to a computer screen. We've been effectively dismissed so Mia stands and we move to the door.

"Oh, and Kavanagh, you need to do something about throwing your sister off the scent. We've been monitoring her computer and she is spending a little too much time looking into Lincoln Timber. We don't need her in the way. She could get hurt especially if Hyde is as unmanageable as your report indicates.

* * *

_Last Night_

_So that was my mother-in-law. _

I would have loved to smack that supercilious look off Elena Lincoln's face as she dragged Mia down to her kinky dungeon. I had no doubt that Mia would be safe with Elena physically but I worried about the emotional damage that woman continued to do her. From the little that Mia was prepared to say I knew that things were still unresolved with her Dad. What a fucked up mess and Elena Lincoln seemed to be at the center of everything that was wrong with the Grey family.

After they left the fun in the club began. In all our planning for tonight, Elliot, Kate and I still had no real confirmation of who we were looking for. Jack Hyde is still just a name for Kate and Elliot although I know what he looks like from his police record. We figured that if he turned up tonight we would get some insight into who was really behind the blackmail scam and in the meantime our team was trying to download the human resources data from SIP where Ana and Hyde worked together. So it was somewhat of an unpleasant surprise to see him arrive in the company of Linc Lincoln.

The slave auction is about to begin and just as I settle back against the bar, I see Linc Lincoln heading backstage with his goon leaving Hyde alone at the table. He seemed to be enjoying the spectacle and drinking one hell of a lot of alcohol on what I presumed was Lincoln's tab. I observed him for a while, trying to decide when and how to approach him when the stage doors opened again and Lincoln walked back out with none other than my sister in drag latched to his forearm. I glanced around for Elliot who was back at the bar and looking ready to vault it and go after her.

Needing to act fast I dabbed a little of the scotch I had been nursing behind my ears and staggered over to Lincoln's center table, flagging TJ on the way to tell him to pull Elliot into line. The last thing we needed was for Elliot to launch into some ill- conceived challenge and blow the whole investigation wide open.

TJ was Elliot's friend, employee and the prick who along with his brother had been blackmailed into taking photos of the Grey family for the past few months. Luckily his loyalty to Elliot was in tact and in spite of his past misdemeanors he seemed to be able to take orders well. He reminded me why I hated 'yes' men but it would be TJ who would be relaying messages back and forth between the table and the bar. Hyde had seen TJ and his brother in some very compromising positions but he would not be surprised at his presence tonight since they had met at Sirens months ago. Yes, Hyde was a sick fuck who didn't mind watching any sort of sex spectacle so the twitching wood in his pants right now as he glanced around at the clientele for the slave auction was on the ugly side of real.

"Hey, aren't you Jack Hyde from SIP?" My attention is focused on Hyde as I drunkenly sway and stumble. _Well, ain't that an eat shit and die look. Oh, how I wish you would my friend, fucker._

"Who wants to know?" _The fucking CIA, dipshit._ He takes a big slug of his drink then leans back in his seat and peers up at me. I guess I must be taller than he thought because he just about tips his seat backwards in the process.

"Ethan, Ethan Tremaine." I choose my Mom's maiden name, I figure if it ever comes out who I really am I can claim it as a pen name. Kate gives me a look that says she can't quite believe what I am saying and then goes back to impassively sipping her drink. Good girl. "I sent you a manuscript a few months back. I wanted to thank SIP for signing me up. I got the confirmation today so I am celebrating tonight. Let me buy you another drink." Without being asked I plonk myself down in a seat and summon TJ. "Another round for everyone."

"I…sure, I remember you." _You've got no fucking idea who I am, moron._ I wonder how Ana coped working with this prick. I push on just in case he is testing me out.

"Well, it wasn't you exactly. It was one of the other editors who got me the contract but I sent my manuscript to you because… I. Knew. You. Were. The best." Just for sport I poke a finger into his chest emphasizing my words. "I guess it never made the cut for your personal attention but that is okay. I'm just glad someone was prepared to take a look at it."

"Sure, fine kid." Hyde is disinterested and distracted and that suits me just fine. "I don't work at SIP any more, anyway."

"Oh? You don't?" I feign innocent concern, knowing full well that Christian Grey is about to stage a very public takeover of SIP and the first order of business was to fire Jack's ass for sexually harassing Ana. I want to keep this prick talking so I try to give the impression that I would jump ship if he told me where to. "I only went to SIP because of you. Where are you now?"

He takes the bait. "Well, I might be starting up my own publishing house soon so if you're interested I will give you a call." Shit, I don't have any cards with the name Tremaine on it, even though it is an alias I have used before.

"Sure. I would really appreciate that." I pat down my jacket as if looking for a wallet meanwhile Kate shifts in her seat. Round one of the slave auction is winding up and she needs to get backstage. "Well it was nice to meet you, Mr Hyde. And you too Miss…?"

Holding my hand out she takes it demurely. "St James, Kit St James." I shake her hand with a big goofy grin on my face trying to make it look like she is the best thing since sliced bread while Lincoln sits with a face like a twisted sand shoe. _Don't even think about it, fuck face._

"Fuck off kid. She's not interested." Kate grimaces obviously sickened by the thought. _Let me be plain you ass, I will tear your fucking head off if you touch my sister. _Kate seems to be reading my thoughts and gears up to intervene.

"Hey boys, play nice." She swallows her drink and stands up. "Well, Linc, Jack, Mr Tremaine, it has been a real slice but a girl has to earn a living. Mr Tremaine, why don't you stay and keep my friends company. The next round is on me boys."

"Thank you Miss St James. Don't mind if I do." Putting just the right edge of inebriation on my speech, I give her a wink then call TJ over. I miss the rest of her goodbye when TJ leans over to take my order.

"You need to announce her for the next song. She has told Linc that her name is Kit St James and she is sporting a really bad New York accent. Can you get to a mic?"

"Sure" He runs back to the bar and moments later I see TJ handing her a hand mic as the lights dim and his voice comes over the PA.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Club Orpheus presents straight from New York, Miss Kit St James and the dancers of Burlesque Siren." Kate looks stunned but catches my eye as I give her a wink. The usual Kate Kavanagh confidence kicks in as she plays a little game of touchy feely with his face before heading up on stage. I have to turn my head away as both Linc and Hyde adjust themselves under the table. _Fuckers._

What I learn as the night goes on doesn't add to my good mood. Hyde is a raving lunatic and the way he talks about women has even Linc doing a double take. I have never heard so much disgusting innuendo nor seen such a blatant display of sociopathic behavior since my training at Langley when we were made to sit through hours of offender testimony. Immediately after that particular semester they sent us to the Farm to get Special Forces combat training. There's nothing like Navy Seals training officers for physically working that stuff out of your system and your head. Top that with a few weeks of Mental Acuity including some sleep deprivation and you soon learn not to let that shit get into your nightmares. Sitting here with Hyde has me sweating buckets as I realize that Lincoln has either no interest or ability to control him. By the look of discomfort on Lincoln's face it would seem that our man Hyde has become a hired gun that has learned to lock and load all by himself and all his hostility is aimed at the Grey family and anyone associated with them.

Next thing I see Kate heading over to our table, singing her song to Linc and Hyde as if there is no one else in the room. Linc just watches uncomfortably as Hyde, the sick fuck, starts to grope Kate pulling her hips towards his face. _Don't react, Kavanagh. They're out in the open, nothing can happen. _Then his hands shift from her ass to her breasts and I can feel the shit about to come down. Linc looks like he wants to kill him. I hear the thud behind me of someone landing heavily and I can only assume that Elliot is on his way, probably with TJ close behind. The goon looks ready to take out his piece and aim it at someone.

I clap along drunkenly with the song and stand up to reach over and grab Kate, trying for all the world to make it look like it is my turn for a piece of the action. She looks ready to come with me but the little prick won't let her go and she winces as he squeezes her nipples. Two things occur to me at this point. The bastard is seriously hurting her and the blue veins on her skin standing out under the stage lights. As if this whole thing wasn't bad enough, if I am not mistaken my little sister is pregnant.

I grab her arm and pull her close into my body trying to shield her from Hyde's groping hands. As I do so, I pretend to stumble and knock my full glass of whiskey into Hyde's lap. If he didn't deserve it for being a sexual predator then he certainly deserved it for wearing that fugly white suit.

"Fuck, what the hell?" Hyde leaps up out of his seat and looks ready to take a swing. Luckily to do that he has to let go of Kate who steps towards Linc for safety. _Out of the fricking fire pan and into the fire, baby girl. _A couple of bouncers appear out of nowhere and drag Hyde outside while TJ and Elliot latch on to me. Kate keeps Lincoln occupied as the boys escort me through the stage door.

"What the hell are you doing?" I turn on them once the door to Kate's dressing room is closed. "Jesus, Elliot, Lincoln is still out there with Kate. You can't leave her there."

"Shit, Ethan, I know that but if you make another scene then you're just going to make it worse. This is no longer your fight; we need to get you away." _God save me from do-gooder civilians. _

"I had everything under control. Now for Christ's sake, get out of my way." Rationality is not being served on the Ethan Kavanagh menu tonight and I defy Elliot to want to do anything other than join me as I punch Lincoln's lights out and go after Hyde to rip off his testicles.

"Cool down, bro. We slipped a little something, something into Linc's drink. Pretty soon his little world is going to tilt on its axis and Kate will be free of him."

_You are sadly mistaken if you think for a moment that while those two assholes are walking upright that anyone will be free of Linc Lincoln._

"I need to get somewhere where I can see what's happening out there." Luckily, TJ steps in at this point obviously sensing that Elliot is going to become a casualty to my mood.

"Come with me. We'll hit the tech booth. You should have a clear view of the floor from up there." As he grabs my arm, Kate comes through the door looking like she has run a marathon and I try to reign in my emotions. If she really is pregnant then she doesn't need me stressing her out. I get the feeling that Elliot will be doing enough of that for both of us. I follow TJ at a trot as we head up a set of stairs to where the lighting and sound technicians are monitoring the show. Sure enough both Hyde and Lincoln have gone. Just to confirm this I get a text from the surveillance team to say that Lincoln's car has left the car park with him in it and Hyde is loitering outside the building. I give them orders to follow Lincoln. I don't want to take any chances. Hyde I will take care of myself.

When TJ leaves me I walk back down to the club floor trying to text Mia as I go. I exit the building through the side doors hoping to double around and intercept Hyde. I want to make sure that he isn't hoping to get another go at Kate. As I approach the front corner of the building I see him striking out with a few of the dancers who are leaving the club. He is about to go to his car and I don't have a vehicle to follow him. I race back into the club and grab Elliot knowing that his friend Taylor, Christian's body guard, will have his team nearby. It shits me having to use non-agency personal without briefing them first but Taylor looks like he knows what he is doing so I am just going to have to trust that the team is well-vetted and nothing will go wrong.

Elliot and I chase after him and Elliot gets the message to allow access to the second surveillance car. We play a game of cat and mouse across town until we get outside Hyde's apartment. When I see who emerges from the other car I curse the God's of unlucky breaks. Phil Johnson is in the other car and he starts to call in the orders. I knew of him when he was still at the agency and the guy is an idiot. He couldn't run a trace on his own grandmother. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do as I watch Johnson take his team in to persuade Hyde to leave town. I can only hope that he has the good sense to put some sort of tracking device the fucker's car.

Once they have delivered the threat to Hyde, Elliot and I begin the drive back to the Treehouse. TJ will have taken Kate back there and their friend Stella who seemed more freaked out by Linc Lincoln's presence than is strictly reasonable. This is a piece of intel I will have to get Rory and his weasels to follow up. I feel deflated by how things have turned out. I know that I have no jurisdiction to have Hyde or Lincoln thrown in jail but every bone in my body knows that is where they both belong. After a while I break the silence.

"I had lunch with your sister today." Mia had arranged to have lunch with Ana today but when I arrived to pick up the keys to the apartment for a second time Ana persuaded me to take Mia out to lunch. While we had been trying to arrange to meet at Christian's birthday fate stepped in in the guise of Ana Steele newly appointed editor at SIP and helped us out.

"I wasn't aware that you knew her." _Icy or what? _I just love this double standard. The Seattle Playboy is allowed to fuck my sister and potentially knock her up but I am not allowed to touch his? Shit and I thought Christian was going to be my biggest issue.

"Don't go the double standard with me Elliot. As I understand it you've knocked up my sister." _Oh, yeah. I went there, my man._

"Don't start Ethan. This isn't the same." _It is exactly the fucking same. At least I married your sister first._

"Really? Are you going to do the right thing or are you going to cut and run?"

"I love her. I will marry her but she isn't ready to make that decision yet. I've been waiting as patiently as I can for her to come around to the idea but it is fucking killing me. So please, don't make this any worse by trying to have this conversation with her." _Wow, so not the answer I expected. Poor bastard._

"Okay." _Obviously, not the answer he expected._

"Okay?" This is almost comical. He actually looks like he wants me to knock the crap out of him.

"Look, I'm not exactly over the moon. As her big brother I feel an obligation to say something. But I know that you love her. Hell, by anyone's standard, you're totally whipped." _Boo-yeah! Maybe he will smack me and I will finally get to let go of some of this aggression._

"Yeah, I am. Are you going to tell me how you know Mia?"

"Nope." There is no way that we are getting into this shit fight tonight. Mia and I have so much more work to do before we can remotely open up that Pandora's box.

"No?" _That's what I said._

"None of your business. Get a ring on Kate's finger and we'll talk."

"Done. Just remember, blunt knife…" _Sure buddy. Blunt knife is going to be the least of my worries when you find out about what went down in Denmark. _

"Yeah, yeah. The Kavanagh code…" The rest of the ride home is in silence which is fine by me. I just wish that Mia could be at the Treehouse to greet me.


	14. Ch 13 Trust in Me

_**A/N: This is the chapter that made me cry and the lemon inspired by Manuel Ferrera. Thank you all for the feedback and I hope you enjoy this one.  
**_

* * *

_**Trust in me in all you do**_

_**Have the faith I have in you **_

_**Love will see us through **_

_**If only you trust in me **_

_**Why don't you, you trust me? **_

_**Come to me when things go wrong **_

_**Cling to me daddy, woah yeah and I'll be strong **_

_**We can get along, we can get along **_

_**Oh, if only you trust in me **_

_**While there's a moon, a moon up high **_

_**While there are birds, birds to fly **_

_**While there is you, a you and I **_

_**I can be sure that I love you, oh**_

_**Etta James - Trust In Me**_

* * *

_Barcelona 2010_

_The cavernous ceilings of the basilica loom above them with the ornate columns forming a marble canopy. To the left of what is to be the main entrance when the renovations are finally complete, is a tall spiral staircase that represents the path of falling sycamore leaves. Every section of the cathedral, from its ornately carved external walls to the impressively beautiful internal structural columns to the multitude of stained glass windows bearing the names of countless artists are a testimony to the uniqueness of Sagrada Familia._

"_Why are we here again?" Ethan is impressed at the building and grateful to be spending any time at all with her but her total preoccupation with Gaudi is not helping him to make any progress with her. For days, during their down time, they have toured apartments and parks looking at his legacy and at no point during that time has she allowed any personal conversation, instead living from behind the lens of her camera._

_I am going to take that damn Nikon and toss it in the harbor. _

_Instead he grimaces as she ignores his question once more. Finally, ten or fifteen shots later she goes to change the lens. _

"_My brother loves Gaudi. He is building a house based on this design. He says the man was brilliant and before his time. I wanted to see for myself." Lens changed she brings the camera up to her eye and begins snapping more photos._

_He walks away from her and begins ascending one of the staircases, wondering if he should even be doing this. He doesn't notice as she points the lens at him, capturing the wonder and curiosity in his expression. Talking to him is a physical strain. Her body seems to ache to be near him while her mind wants to kick his ass into the Mediterranean Sea. They wander around for a while longer barely speaking to each other before finally leaving the cathedral and locating a restaurant. _

_They order tapas and mineral water then settle back to soak up the sun. _

"_How are your family?" Not that he knew them. Everything about their relationship had been a carefully guarded secret, at first because she wasn't old enough to be dating him and later because of the agency's involvement in her life. _

"_They're just peachy, thanks for asking. And yours?" Her hostility was pretty telling. He suspected not all of it was aimed at him but he would let it slide. If she wanted to fire off her inner bitch at will then he had long ago accepted that it should be aimed at him._

"_They're good. I heard Christian is doing really well for himself." _

"_You read it in my file." Her head tipped to one side as she smirked at him. _

"_Whatever. I have been home a couple of times in the last few years. And I do read the news. Your brothers get a fair bit of press." Not always for the right reason._

"_Well, they are doing fine. Just fine," she mutters through gritted teeth._

"_I am not your enemy, Mia."_

"_Then what are you? Don't say my friend because I have enough of those. I don't need another one thanks."_

"_I am your colleague and a person who knows and understands your history first hand and not out of some bullshit CIA file."_

"_Well, that was a mistake on my part, wasn't it? Unfortunately I can't take any of that back. So tell me Ethan, apart from being thrown together for this mission, exactly what do you want from me."_

"_How about a little civility? How about a little common decency?"_

"_Oh that is rich. How about we just agree that you and I don't like each other. In fact, why don't we simply go with barely contained loathing? That way we will both know where we stand. I'm here to do a job and nothing more."_

_The ice in her voice cut him to the core. He thought nothing could hurt him as much as leaving her in the quad that day until he heard that she left for Europe. Now she was doing it again and he needed to get away from her before he either screamed out an apology in the street or slapped her for being so self-absorbed. He stood up and threw a note on the table before storming across the road and disappearing down to the metro station._

_Bringing her camera up to her face she clicked the button repeatedly as she watched him dissolve into the crowd. A moment later the tapas arrived at the table and she looked morosely at the food she didn't have the stomach to eat. It seemed like such a waste. Such an almighty waste. Instead of eating she scrolled through the photos she had taken today; Ethan in the church, Ethan on the train, Ethan on the street, Ethan crossing the street. In every shot he seemed to be walking away. That was how she would always think of him. Carefully, one by one she deleted each trace of him from her camera._

* * *

Seattle 2011

We are on our way to a late supper when the call comes through from my father. Now the family is gathered at Escala hoping for news that seems destined to never come. For the first time in years, when my father pulls me into an embrace I go willingly. This is no time to hold a grudge, however deep it may be. Luckily, my mother needs his arms more than I do and he releases me as a fresh wave of tears hits her.

For all of my doubts about my parents I can see that their love for us is genuine and heartfelt. I am not going to dwell on some of their shittier decisions but I wonder, if I went missing, would my father give a shit. After all, if I am not good enough to be claimed legitimately then the chances are I would be totally expendable to him if not for my mother.

Ethan sees me frowning and in a rare public display of affection he wraps me in his arms. This is where I belong and I feel so awful when I glance across at Ana who looks so lost and alone. It doesn't seem fair that Christian finally finds someone who can bring him some peace only to be wrenched away by a twist of fate.

Jason Taylor is anxiously monitoring all the incoming information from his little spy room. It is impressive for a home run operation but nothing compared to the resources that are currently at work across town at the safe house. Since the call came in, Rory has had satellite streams trying to pinpoint the location but is getting as frustrated as the emergency services with the rugged terrain between Seattle and Portland. Constant volcanic activity in the area renders GPS navigation useless and until daylight there is not much more that can be done.

Funnily enough, although the agency felt that Christian Grey and GEH might be important enough that he was included in the year of planning for this mission. Now that he has gone missing they are ready to move on to a fresh target and the messages we are getting from Rory indicate that they want him to pull back. He says he won't but I wonder how long he can fob them off.

"Baby, its okay to fall apart." Ethan whispers in my ear. "Christian is your brother and this is your family. You don't have to hold it together. I'll catch you."

Of course, he's wrong. Falling apart is tantamount to giving up and I'm not ready to do that yet. But the Mia that they expect in this room would be far more emotional so I am torn physically by not wanting to let go and putting on a show for the people I love. This is crap and if I could take Ethan downstairs to the gym and kick the crap out of him, I would do it and he would let me. Such is his love.

His arms squeeze around me and I draw in breath taking in his scent. God, what would I do if I lost him. After all of these years of being apart could I take it if anything happened to him. This time the tears are real as I bury my head in his shoulder.

"It is a waste of time."

"What? The search? No, it isn't. We will keep searching until we find him one way or another."

"No, I mean this thing with my Dad. All of this time I have spent hating him. It seems so pointless." Ethan lets out a big sigh.

"You know I would never force you but ever since you told me about that fight I have thought you should talk to him. You should do it for you. So you can heal and move on."

"I guess. I just could never come up with an answer that would be reasonable. I don't get why anyone would do that to their own child."

"Well, you won't know until you ask him. And whatever he says you always have me, you always have us."

"Always."

"But you don't have to do this tonight. You don't have to rush into it." He knows me so well. He knows how hard it is for me to forgive because it took so long to forgive him and I regret that now. We could have been together so much sooner but I kept blaming him for something he had no choice in. Am I doing that to my father too? Have I done that with Christian? And what if Christian is really gone? I won't ever be able to mend the rift left from that day at Elena's. My body aches with the futility of it all and is near collapse but as he promised, Ethan is here, holding me up, keeping me strong.

Kate walks past us and Ethan reaches out to squeeze her hand. She pauses for a moment and looks at us as if she is seeing us for the first time and I guess she is. I guess everyone is and we both have the same thought at the same time. Given that Ethan and I have only met officially this afternoon, it probably isn't a good idea to look like my world begins and ends with him. Even if it does.

"This is all wrong, isn't it?" His voice is barely a murmur.

"Yep. If I let go of you now I am going to completely lose it but I shouldn't be in your arms like this. Everyone is staring."

"No they're not. They're worried about Christian. No one thinks anything of it. I just have to remember not to kiss you. But I want to. You know that, right?"

"Life affirming sex?" For the first time this evening I smile into his chest so only he knows.

"Yep. You know if I could I would, baby." I nod and step away from him for a moment to survey the room. Just as I do there is a shift near the door. Someone new has entered and it takes a moment for my head to register that it is Christian. "He's here, baby. He's here."

Ethan lets me go and I am across the room with the rest of my family taking in the bizarre scene of my mother hugging my brother in a way that he has never permitted before. He hasn't let anyone get that physically close, ever in his life. Very occasionally, I have been able to throw him off guard but not like this. For the first time he is hugging our mother like he means it and she, god love her, does not look like she wants to let go any time soon.

After a while, he steps toward Ana and the world tilts for me. The brother who I thought only ever has one kind of relationship, the brother who has never been physically loving with anyone, the brother who has never dated publicly, is in the arms of this diminutive sprite who seems to have captured him body and soul. I had assumed their connection was based on her being the perfect sub but there is so much more here. It is when I see her tears and the love and concern in his face as he consoles her that I finally lose it big time and Ethan is right there again, wrapping me up in his strong arms.

Everyone is so focused on Christian and Ana that they don't notice our tender kiss or the way that my husband tucks his hand beneath my chin and whispers his love for me while looking into my eyes. No one sees me press my body hard against him and grasp his face in my hands as my tears fall. It only takes a moment and then we step apart again.

I watch my parents carefully as they untangle themselves from the proceedings. This distance between us seems like the worst possible waste of time. I don't know if I will like what he has to say, I don't know if there will ever be a reason he could give that I would forgive but I know that if I don't start to reach out soon, the poison of hating him is going to eat into my relationship with Ethan and I couldn't bear it. So as they say their goodbyes Ethan and I are in a heated discussion.

"Baby, please, not tonight. Go and see them tomorrow. Come home with me tonight. I want to look after you."

"Ethan I have to go with them. I need to do this. I need to know. I'm not sure I will have the courage if I wait. I want to be with you so very much but I have to do this tonight. Please forgive me."

"I'm going to the boat house then. I will be waiting for you. I'm not having you go through this alone. Please promise me that you will come to me."

"Okay." I want to tell him I love him but by now we have attracted some attention. Instead I pull away and mouth the word that means so much more to both of us. "Always."

"Always." I run to join my parents.

* * *

Not much is said on the way back to Bellevue and once she has a cup of tea in hand my mother goes up to bed. I change into T-shirt and jeans and make my way to my father's study. The lamplight casts a shadow across the desk and I see he is hunched over gripping a glass of scotch in front of him. I pause for a moment wondering if he has nodded off and then see his shoulders begin to shake as he sobs. My heart clenches and I am torn between making my presence known and running back upstairs to my room. Taking a deep breath I push the door open further.

"Daddy?" At first I think he hasn't heard me but his body has gone still. "Daddy?"

This time his head snaps up and he hastily wipes away the tears from his eyes before he speaks. "Hey princess, what can I do for you?"

"Can I come in?" I take a few tentative steps toward the desk feeling like I am 13 years old again.

"Of course, baby girl." He looks so surprised. So unsure. And I feel like such a bitch. This poor flawed and broken man who very clearly loves his children is trying hard to pull the pieces of his heart together. I close my eyes and draw on the memories of my childhood when I still was his princess, his baby girl. He didn't stop treating me that way. I stopped allowing him too.

Now doesn't seem the right time to talk about me. I walk around the desk and stand at his side feeling a little unsure. Finally I step close and wrap my arms around his head and he starts to cry again.

"I thought we'd lost him, Mia. I thought we'd lost our little boy." And in one of those rare moments of insight I see that the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent. "And when he hugged your mother, I just…I couldn't…I love him so much Mia. He never lets us love him but we do. I do." His tears freshen up into choking sobs and I clasp his head to my stomach and let my own tears fall.

Eventually he pulls himself together and I move a little away from him to perch on the edge of his desk. He leans back and looks up at me.

"You wanted to talk, baby girl?" Thinking about it right now I can see that Ethan was right. Now isn't the time. That haunted helpless look dominates his features making him look so much older than his 59 years.

"I just wanted to check on you." A look of disappointment washes over his face. "Daddy…I love you. I'm sorry."

He reaches out a hand and pulls me on to his lap. It isn't the same as when I was a little girl but it sure feels familiar. I snuggle in for a moment enjoying a scent that I haven't smelled in five years. It smells like home.

After a few minutes I straighten up and move back to the edge of the desk. He looks bereft for a moment, as if he has lost something important.

"Daddy. We need to talk. I need to know. But not tonight. Tonight you need to go to Mom. I think that is really important. And just so you know. I'm going to sleep out in the boathouse."

"But…" I place a hand on his and stop him from saying any more.

"Mom needs you. More than this desk does, or this whiskey. More than I do. I'll be fine and we can talk tomorrow. I promise."

He nods, finally getting what I am saying. I don't want to think about my parents' sex life but I am pretty sure that they won't be the only ones who need life affirming sex tonight and they don't need to hold back because their adult daughter is sleeping down the hall. With that thought I grab a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and head out to the boathouse.

* * *

Ethan is standing at the balcony looking out to the water with his hands in his pockets. His body is a still silhouette with the moon backlighting him but he is a sight to behold. Slowly he turns to face me as I walk up the final few stairs and place the wine on the table.

"That didn't take long."

"You were right. It wasn't the time to talk. But I have promised him we will in the morning."

"Come here." I walk into his arms and soak up his warmth. His hands are in my hair as he yanks my head back and crashes his mouth into mine. God, I need this. I need to feel every ounce of his strength bring me back to life. I need his love to be rough and hard and fast. Instantly I jump and wrap my legs around his waist, his hands going to my ass to support me. Our tongues thrash together as he walks us back into the room and over to the bed.

Throwing me back onto the mattress his body follows quickly pressing down onto me. "I want to make you feel everything tonight. I want you to trust me. To trust that I know what you need. Can you do that Mia? Can you let yourself go for me completely? Will you let me give you what you need?"

His voice is a constant whisper between wet languid kisses, into my ear, on my forehead, my cheek, my jaw, my neck. All the while his hands are feathering traces of sensation down my face as if calming a small frisky puppy. His erection is pressing into my stomach and I wriggle to move so that it presses my core but he pulls me back.

"No, no, no. Don't take control baby. Don't make this harder on yourself. Let me love you. Let me hold you. Let me do this for you."

His voice never goes above a whisper and I find myself mewling like a kitten. The intensity of his tone is so erotic, his breath on every inch of my skin, awakening sensations I have never felt before. His words switch between English, French, Spanish, Russian. I am translating and reacting and responding in a language that my body is inventing as we go. Any moment he is going to make me come just by talking to me.

"I'm going to lift this top now. I want to see your beautiful breasts. I want to suckle on your hard nipples. You want that don't you?"

"Yes, yes. Please. Please." His hands slide under the fabric and with a slow steady stroke he pushes up, his hands burning a path over my waist, my ribs and to just below my breasts before he stops. Then his mouth traces the same path stopping just below the aching mounds of flesh before he starts on the other side. "Please, suck them. Please my tits, please."

"Ssshhhh. Don't rush this. Don't try to rush. I know what you need. Relax. Relax my angel. Breathe."

Then his hand pushes up the flesh as his tongue licks towards my now aching nipple. I am sure that I am on some sort of sensory overload and I cry out when he gets to the firm flesh and sucks hard through his teeth. An electrical pulse shoots through my body and I soak my panties. He continues to massage my breasts with his hands but slides his head down my body, licking and kissing all the way to my waist. I thrust towards his face and he nips at my stomach.

"Be still. Still, baby. I can smell you. You smell so fucking amazing. You're ready for me, aren't you baby? You want me to lick you there. To suck your beautiful wet pussy. Only I don't want to leave these lovely breasts. I shouldn't leave them yet."

I cry out with frustration as he slides back up the length of my body, again his mouth touching as much skin as he can, burning a trail back to my nipples. I strain against him once more wanting to feel his firm body pressed into mine. Wanting to feel his erection slide over my core.

His mouth is on mine again as he continues to massage my breasts and press his length against me. His leg slides between my thighs and he lifts his knee until he hits my vagina allowing me to writhe and hump his leg wantonly. Yes, he knows what I need. His mouth is back on my left breast while one hand massages the right and his other hand slides into my mouth. I suck on his fingers hard, swirling my tongue around his digits in a simulation of the blow job I would so willingly offer him now. He groans and I press my pelvis against his knee once more. With one almighty suck of my nipple that electric shock shoots to my center again and I come hard against his leg. I scream but his hand is across my mouth stifling my passion.

"Sshhh. Sshhh, sweetheart. Let it come. It won't be the last time. Let it come. I've got you. I'll take care of you."

As my breathing gets back to normal he sits me up, wrenching my top over my head. Then laying me gently back down again. Next he undoes the button on my jeans and slides the zipper down but instead of removing my pants he reaches inside and slides a finger inside my wet, throbbing folds. My instant reaction is to squeeze around his fingers as I thrust upwards but he pushes my pelvis back down to still my body again.

"You're fighting sweetheart. Don't fight. Don't move. Let me love you. Let me make it right for you. I want to worship you. I want to love you. Just let me." Then he pulls my jeans down my legs and strips me of all my clothes. I feel each caress of his loving eyes as sweeps his gaze over my body. My torso undulates under his scrutiny and the whispers start again. Calling me, teasing me, guiding me.

"Open those pretty thighs for me sweetheart. Let me look. Let me see how wet you are." My legs move of their own volition. He is a snake charmer, the pied piper and my body is completely at his mercy. Dancing to the tune he plays with his tongue, with his deep lilting voice, with his loving caress.

His mouth descends to my pussy licking and sucking the external moisture left from my last orgasm and calling forth more. Once more my body spasms with each thrust of his tongue and I find myself wanting to pull away, to give him room. Instead he pulls me down harder toward his face using his firm grip on my hips to thrust my pelvis down onto his tongue. The friction feels so amazing and I respond with more mewling cries unable to restrain my voice.

In an instant he is off me and I feel the chill of his absence. He quickly throws off his own clothes before descending over me again, his thigh between mine, his hands on my waist travelling slowly achingly upward. His mouth comes down on mine and I taste the tanginess of my own juices as he plunges his tongue into my mouth.

He murmurs through his thrusting kisses, "Can you taste that? Can taste how sweet you are? Do you know why I love the taste of you? You are so beautiful Mia. So perfect. So fuckable. So loveable."

His fingers dive into my folds again and begin to pump with every thrust of his tongue. First one, then two then three fingers angled perfectly to hit the sweet spot inside me, massaging that sacred part that drives me into a wild frenzy of spasms. I start to come around his fingers but he doesn't relent. There is no respite from the pumping, thrusting of his hand and I spasm again, my whole body folding in on itself. This is so different to the way I have come before. This is all consuming fire, a heat generated deep in my belly and flooding out to my toes. I cry with the intensity of it all and he swallows those cries with the continued thrusting of his tongue and pressure of his perfect lips on mine. Soon the orgasm takes on a life of its own, a pressure that needs room to release and he seems to know instinctively. He removes his fingers as my body spasms again and jets of warm liquid begin to fly from my pussy.

"Oh God, oh I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. Oh I can't stop, I'm sorry." I cry not fully understanding what is happening but he is there reassuring me, alternately stroking my thighs as the flow continues then placing his palm firmly on the pressure point and letting my muscles spasm against it. I want to die.

"No, no, no. Sweet girl. Sweet baby, my angel. That was beautiful. You are beautiful. Look. It is come. It is all your beautiful orgasm. It is natural and beautiful and the most wonderful gift you've given me. Look taste it, taste it with me." He brings his wet hand to my face and I am mesmerized as he licks the moisture off his hand. "It's so sweet, it is all you. My perfect angel, all you."

I taste and I cry and he holds me tight murmuring those words over and over. A few minutes is all that he allows me though before he hovers over me once more.

"I need to be inside you now angel. I need to fuck you and fuck you very, very hard. Will you trust me with this? Can I fuck you the way I need to? The way you need it?" I nod my head, unable to speak through the shimmering haze of my tears. I didn't know. How could I know it could be like this. We have loved so often in these last few weeks but not like this, nothing like this.

With one quick thrust he is inside me and I gasp. I was worried that my muscles, so tender and tight after my orgasms would not welcome him but that rough thrust, that hard pressure is exactly what my body is screaming out for. He holds still a moment, looking into my eyes, holding my face.

"Stay with me angel. Stay with me. If you need me to stop I will but I don't think you will. I am sure this is what you want, what you need. Try to stay with me as long as you can. Can you do that?" I have never known him to talk so much to me. Ever. During sex or not. This caring. This assurance is bringing me to my knees. I don't know which language he is speaking to me. I hear them all. I feel them all. Every single word.

He thrusts hard then pulls back slowly. Then he repeats slamming into me with such force that my body shifts up the bed involuntarily. The withdrawal is a burning pain as my muscles reach out to grip him, willing him not to leave my body then he thrusts once more, once more slamming me up the bed. This time when he withdraws he pulls my waist, dragging me back away from the headboard. Then he moves my arms up until I can reach the rails.

"I need you to hold on tight baby. You are going to need to brace yourself, okay. You're so beautiful, Mia." He starts to thrust again this time building up a rhythm that starts slow then rapidly increases.

"I love you, Mia. I love your body… your soul… your spirit. You amaze me. You excite me beyond belief. I miss you … every… second… that you're… not with me. I dreamed you… every… single… night… for six…long…lonely…fucking…years. I ached for you."

Every thrust brings more confessions, of the love, the loneliness, the pain. I can't bear it. The tears flow down my cheeks as my body twists and turns in the onslaught of his passion trying desperately to show how much I missed him too. I cry out and his hand is on my mouth again, holding a safe space for me to scream as he pounds into me. Then he slaps me across the face and I whimper but I welcome it.

"More."

He slaps again and I gasp. He is gentle, too gentle. I need more, I want more. Abruptly he pulls out of me.

"Turn over baby. Up on your knees and hold onto that railing. Hold on tight baby. You need to tell me to stop when it gets too much. I want you to say 'Sagrada' when you need me to stop baby. Can you do that?" I nod.

"Say it." His voice is a growl as he pulls my head back to look at him.

"Sagrada," I whisper. "Sagrada." As he looks into my eyes I hope that he sees the longing. The need. My eyes plead with him to…what? The memory of the girl in the window all those years ago comes back to me in a rush. Her submission, her humiliation. The tenderness, the violence. I want that. I want it so bad but I can't ask. I won't ask. Ethan looks at me carefully before pulling my hair again and lowering his mouth to bite my lip. I cry out, my eyes fluttering and body writhing with the exquisiteness of the pain before I refocus on him again. His face is impassive but his eyes spark.

"Good girl. Good girl." His hand begins to rub in languid circles around my ass. I am frightened of the unknown of his movements and exhilarated to present myself for him. "Part your legs for me baby. I need to see that sweet slit. Oh, sweetheart you are glistening, so beautiful, so sexy."

His hand pulls away and then smacks down on my right cheek hard. I cry out, arching my back and he instantly has his hand over my mouth.

"Ssh. Ssh angel. It's going to be okay. Did that feel good?" I nod instinctively, as he coaxes me into submission. His hand is rubbing the tender skin and I yearn for him to hit me again. Quickly, he pulls back and smacks the other cheek. My body arches again but this time he is prepared, his hand already over my mouth so I release a biting scream into his palm. His other hand reaches into the cleft and strokes down to my wetness before he pulls back and smacks me firmly on the pussy. It stings but it feels so good. Once more my body moves and my whimpers come unbidden as he whispers soothingly into my ear.

The spanking goes on for another fifteen minutes. He alternates the spot each time, and every time I feel the sharp sting and the gentle afterburn. My body wants so badly to come and come hard. My nipples are aching and sore and he knows because he reaches around to rub them and tweak them giving me some relief. And the whispering, the talking continues, talking me down off the ledge of my orgasmic precipice each time.

"You've been so good angel. You've taken it all and now I am going to fuck you again and this time we are both going to finish it. Together, okay?" I nod and very quickly he enters me from behind. I grip the bed knowing this is going to be intense. Gone is the Ethan who so easily loses control. This is a dominant powerful loving Ethan who has completely taken over my body. He is feeling each and every pulse of my muscles, the flow of my blood. I am his unreservedly.

Once inside me he begins thrusting hard and fast. His breathing is ragged and loud in my ear. There is no more talking, no more gentle whispering. The repeated slamming of his body pounding hard against my ass has me struggling for traction and breath. It is beautiful and powerful and makes me sob. I feel my body building toward a release and his own cries are catching in his throat. The slap of his balls against my labia is intensifying everything.

"Now baby. Come for me now." I let go and he holds me tight as we both fall over the edge, our orgasms rocking us to our core. "Fuck baby. Fuck."

We collapse on our sides, his erection still firmly inside me, his arms around my waist, my hands gripped over his hands, my legs pushed back through his legs. There is no knowing where his body ends and mine begins. An hour or so later I wake from sleep his body still locked firmly around mine with the delicious ache of having been totally dominated and knowing I would do it again in a heartbeat. I stir, trying to tempt him to wake and take me again. Instead he pulls out of me, goes to the bathroom and grabs a wet cloth.

When he emerges his focus is on cleaning me and even though I am trying to look into his eyes he keeps them averted. The sheets are soaked through from us both coming so he pulls me up and strips the bed, laying a blanket down before putting me back to bed. I hold my arms out to welcome him back to my body but he rolls me over and spoons me.

"Go to sleep, angel." It is a command, not a request so I snuggle in with a smile. Round two can wait until morning.


	15. Ch 14: Fragile

**_A/N: You all know I am not one for the big respond to everyone author note. I tend to get on and PM anyone who is kind enough to leave me some feedback. I notice a lot of authors write notes almost as long as the chapter they are updating. Please pardon me if I don't break the habit of lifetime. I hope you are still enjoying this and reading it. It seems like someone is. Thank you to all of those who do leave me a note. I really appreciate it and I listen to what you have to say. I will work on another chapter for Going Grey next. If you see me make a mistake in the plot lines or the timelines please let me know. I think some of you might know these stories better than I do. Love you all, Sasha x_**

* * *

**_If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one  
Drying in the colour of the evening sun  
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away  
But something in our minds will always stay  
Perhaps this final act was meant  
To clinch a lifetime's argument  
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could  
For all those born beneath an angry star  
Lest we forget how fragile we are_**

_**On and on the rain will fall**_  
_**Like tears from a star like tears from a star**_  
_**On and on the rain will say**_  
_**How fragile we are how fragile we are**_

_**On and on the rain will fall**_  
_**Like tears from a star like tears from a star**_  
_**On and on the rain will say**_  
_**How fragile we are how fragile we are**_  
_**How fragile we are how fragile we are**_

**_Fragile - Sting_**

* * *

Seattle 2003

"_Christian is coming home." Elena's head shot up at Grace's words and Mia tried to feign indifference. "He says he's dropping out of Harvard. Carrick is livid." _

"_Has he said why he is dropping out?" Mia bristled at Elena's seemingly innocent question. Elliot had discussed this with her a week ago. The story Christian had told his parents about boredom and frustration at idiot professors who knew nothing of the real business world and the truth of a girl found beaten and unconscious in his apartment, were miles apart. Mia wondered how much Elena actually knew. Grace stared into her cup and sighed with the sadness of a mother who may have failed her son._

"_No not really. You know what he's like. We'll be months in therapy before we get anything like the truth and even then he'll be guarded. I just don't know what to do. When the fighting stopped and he started to do better in school, I really thought we had turned a corner with him and now this." Not for the first time that week, Mia noticed the lines around her mother's eyes. The arguments and tension between her parents over Christian's decision were taking their toll. Mia had been hiding out at Lily's as much as she could._

"_You know Grace, Christian is a very smart young man. Perhaps Harvard isn't where he needs to be right now." Mia studied her mother's best friend for a moment. Something was off but she was struggling to put a finger on it. Her mother was stressed and finding it difficult to think beyond the tension this latest situation had thrown up. Elena, on the other hand, looked…unsurprised. Calculating._

_Mia couldn't take her eyes from Elena's face as Grace excused herself for a moment leaving them at the table. Elena leveled her with a glare that took Mia's breath for a moment._

"_Are you going to tell me what you know Mia?"_

"_I don't know anything." Mia did her best to project surly teenager to her sometimes aunt. Since she had discovered Elena and Christian had a secret and sordid bond, Mia had backed away from the woman who had been somewhat of a mentor to her._

"_You're lying." Mia held her ground, not looking away but not willing to say anything to Elena about the girl who had been tied up and all but left for dead next to a heavily drunk and passed out Christian. Elliot had told her not to tell their parents but she wondered for a moment if Elena could possibly help._

"_Christian can't go back. That's all I know. Daddy will try to make him but he can't go." Mia forced a little whimper into her voice. She needn't have bothered. By the sudden draining of color from Elena's face, she had already worked out the worst of it. "Please Elena. There must be something that you can do. Daddy will throw him out if he finds out. It will break Mama's heart."_

_Elena maintained a very schooled look but Mia knew that she was considering the options. It wasn't difficult for Mia to keep the tears at the surface. After all that she knew, about the girl and Elliot's suspicions that Christian was being framed, she was only just holding her emotions in check. Finally Elena reached out and patted her hand just as Grace came back to the table._

"_Grace, don't worry. I'll take care of it. Christian has already sent me a business plan. I have had my accountant look at it and he seems to think it's a sound investment." Grace looks shocked. She obviously had no idea that Christian and Elena were even in contact with each other. "Christian needs something more than an ivy league college can give him. The money will be from my compensation fund and if it doesn't work out then there's no harm."_

"_Elena, you can't do that. That money is…"_

"_Tainted." Elena cut in. "You and Carrick should know that better than anyone. If Christian can make something of it then I might finally feel justice has been served." Mia glanced from Elena to Grace, not understanding what was happening here. Just when she thought her mother would refuse this offer Grace surprised her. _

"_Yes, yes. Perhaps it will."_

* * *

Seattle 2011

Chicken shit! I leave her sleeping in the boathouse, the first rays of light kissing her soft skin. When I thought about what I had done, what we had done, I felt sick to my stomach. Mia is my princess, my angel and I treated her like a whore. I had coaxed her into a sexual performance, dominated her body, ordered her to be something she simply had no experience of, should have no experience of. She is beautiful and perfect, a sexual innocent before me and I had tainted her with a sick depravity that I didn't know was buried inside of me. I hit her. I hit her for fuck's sake. Now, like the chicken shit that I am, I am running the lake path back to my parents' house because I simply don't want to see the look on her face when she wakes up.

I know in the world of BDSM that what we did would barely register. I understand that she may have even enjoyed most of what happened. Her body certainly responded to every word, every touch. However, Mia, who was haunted by lies and secrets from every person who claimed to love her deserves better from me. Especially me. Call it what you will, violence is violence and Mia would be the first to call me on this. She might forgive me but then we will both know that it is there, the something neither of us could ever take back. And the worst part of it all, the part that I am running so hard from now, I liked it. Fucking spineless shit that I am, when she did what I asked, when she obeyed my orders, when I reddened her skin, I wanted more.

At the moment this thought takes hold of my brain, the rest of my body reviles and tries to expel it and I find myself standing over a trash can hurling last night's meal into it's depths. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The rational part of my brain understands that there are people all over the world who live perfectly well in relationships where dominance and submission is part of who they are and how they love. I have never made a judgment on anyone who chose this for themselves, not even Christian Grey. I just never would have believed that the act of domination would appeal to me. Fuck Elena Lincoln for being right about me. I hope the bitch rots in hell.

Just then my personal cell rings. The one that only Mia has the number for.

"Babe, where are you?" I try desperately to pull myself together. Let's just aim for a shade on the happy side of normal.

"Hey, princess. I'm just heading back to Mom's place. You know, shit, shower, shave time." Jeez, and the nominees for romantic afterglow are…

"Right. Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"That would be a negative." Fuck! Let's not do this. "There's nothing wrong, babe. I just don't want to get caught by your folks."

"Too soon?" That little edge of disappointment in her voice is bringing me to my knees. Hell, I don't know which tub of feelings to dip into. Whatever I do here, I am going to make a fucking mess of it.

"Too soon. Honey, I better get moving. I'll text you later on, okay?" I go to hang up when she stops me.

"You are going to be at Christian's birthday tonight, aren't you?" She sounds like she's running, probably trying to get up to the main house before her folks come down and see the fucknest in the boathouse.

"Honey, I don't know. I don't think that is a good idea. It's not like Christian even knows me."

"No. But after last night they will expect you to come as my date." Well, don't that just make for a fucking happy family meeting. Hi, in laws, I'm the husband you don't know about and guess what, I like beating up on your little girl. Oh, and your family is caught in the middle of a major national security threat and you don't even fucking know it. Happy days.

"Mia, can't we just do this another time? Your family is getting over the shock of thinking they lost Christian, they don't need to deal with our relationship too." Well, that silence is deafening. Eventually the ice maiden surfaces.

"I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you but you better pull it together, Kavanagh. We have to start building this connection, it is part of our agreed cover and you are not going to chicken out just because you're having an attack of the guilts over marrying me. Be a coward on your own time, tonight is about the investigation and our relationship is time critical. Elena is going to be there and she needs to see us together."

"Look Mia, this plan of Rory's is never going to work. You need to be free to go deep and I am not a good risk with this. I am not a dom. I can't do what she expects."

"So what was last night? You had me bent over and begging for more. Are you going to tell me that you didn't want that? That you didn't enjoy it?"

"It was wrong, Mia. And I don't mean that in a way that puts your brother down. I mean that it is wrong for me. I don't treat women that way. I don't treat you that way."

"Shut it, Kavanagh. You're a fucking trained agent. You do whatever needs to be done to get the job done. And so do I."

"You're my wife and I don't do that!" You wanna start crying like the girl you are, Kavanagh?

"You did it! You did it without training and without being deep. You did it because it came naturally. It is part of who you are." Her voice is raised, condemning me, belittling me. I know the psychology. She wants me to rebel against what is right and do what is needed.

"No! NO! I won't be that! I CAN'T DO THAT! NOT TO YOU!" I cut the connection and throw the phone full force into the lake. It won't make much difference, she knows that I am carrying the agency phone as well. "FUCK!"

I take off at a run hoping that the exertion will deal with the horror I am feeling right now. Mia might defend this as our job but eventually she will hate me. It would only be a matter of time before the resentment would eat at her and then where would we be. Whatever trust I had managed to claw back from leaving her in the quad that day would be eroded. Before I can churn this over any more the bile rises once more and I have to stop and deal with the visceral effect.

My other phone vibrates and I regret checking it the moment it is in my hand. A text from Rory saying that he is pulling agency personnel from the search for Christian's downed chopper. Someone has pulled the plug and given my current mood I am prepared to apply a coat of verbal paint stripper to Rory for allowing this to happen. Mia will want to know if there was any foul play, as do I.

Just as I start to get it together and dial Rory I hear the sound of a skateboard racing along the path toward me. I turn around to see my wife risking life and limb as she scoots herself along at full tilt trying to catch up with me. Since there is nothing to be done about it, I pocket the cell, hold my ground and wait to catch her as she glides up still at full speed. Before I can demo my superhero routine she goes into a 180 degree powerslide as I nearly crap my pants.

"Jesus Christ, Mia, what the fuck was that?" I pull her around roughly by her upper arm and she angrily shakes my hand free. My worst nightmare has arrived in front of me. Full on hostile and severely pissed Mia and she looks set to tear me a new asshole. Well not before I squash this ridiculous plan not to mention letting her feel my wrath over that stupid stunt that she just pulled. I stand still and glare at her.

"You wanna try that again, Catholic boy?" She spits out her question as she takes her helmet off and shoves it into my stomach. Her tone could freeze water. I throw the helmet down on the ground beside us.

"See, this is exactly what I am talking about? I might want to take you over my knee for giving me fucking heart failure right now. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I am trying to talk to you. And if you would stop running from yourself then maybe you'll stop putting me at risk." Ever have one of those days when you just want to take your loved ones and lock them away for their own damn good? "Ethan, do you love me?"

"Don't be ridiculous Mia. This has got nothing to do with loving you."

"So you don't love me?" Shit, talk about digging my own grave.

"Of course I love you. And that is why I can't do this."

"Why? Because you don't trust me."

"No, because you won't trust me. You will hate me for this. If you had any sense of self preservation you would hate me for last night."

"Why? Cos you playfully smacked my ass?" Just as she utters these words a middle-aged couple come jogging down the track. They nudge each other and smile at the ground as they run past us.

"Will you keep your voice down?" Once more I grab her arm but this time I pull her hard against my body and she tucks herself into me with a giggle. Damn it I hate it when she distracts me. Holding her closer I feel her arms wrap around my waist, the warmth of her lips on my shoulder and a little moisture. Fuck, now I've made her cry.

"I wanted you to smack me. I wanted you to do so much more but you were on such a roll with all that talk that I barely knew which way was up. Most of the time I am so lost in sensation with you that I need you to take over. Tell me what I am supposed to be feeling so I can concentrate on that and not go spinning off into space. I love you owning my body. You try that crap out here in the real world and I will smack you upside the head and kick your ass into the middle of next week. But baby, you're killing me here. I feel like I did something wrong and you know I don't like to be wrong." Tears glisten in her eyes as she struggles to keep them in. Staring into those big brown eyes is like a vacuum on my airways.

"Princess, it isn't you that was wrong. What you felt was a perfectly normal response." Her body stiffens and she pulls herself away, shoving at my upper body somewhat ineffectively as she does so. When I don't lose my balance she slaps me hard across the face.

"Don't. Don't give me your psychobabble bullshit Ethan Kavanagh. I swear if you give me any of that you're-all-clear shrinkage…"

"Shrinkage?" At least she has me laughing, but just a little.

"Yeah, shrinkage. Whenever it suits you, you do this what-you-are- feeling-is-perfectly-normal routine and justify my insanity when quite frankly I like being just a little bit loopy. So don't you dare cos I am not."

"Not what?"

"Not normal. And neither are you. Even though you want to believe you have the world all neatly boxed up. You've pegged Christian as some sort of sexual deviant, Ana has a savior complex, Kate over-analyzes, Elliot's masking his pain. You do it with everyone and then when you think you have us all labeled and packaged you write your dinky little 12-page reports so that the agency can deal. Well, don't start that with me. I am unique and complex and I don't want you to think for a moment that you have me all sewn up cos you know I will take that shit and give it the blender treatment until you don't know what flavor you're tasting."

"Mia, I …." Have nothing to say. She has nailed it on the head so well that I am wondering which one of us is the trained profiler here.

"I can analyze numbers and formulas and code until the cows come home but I don't want that from you. I don't want to be worked out. And you may think you're not a dom but I happen to adore that dominant, alpha male, this-is-the-way-your-world-will-begin-and-end-with -me dance because it _is_ you. It's us. Don't you get that? I might not have a submissive bone in my body with anyone else but I trust you. I trust you enough to take the reigns and make me prance like a fucking dressage pony in the ring and like it."

"Dressage pony." I raise my eyebrows at her and she slaps her hand to her forehead in exasperation.

"Yes, a _fucking_ dressage pony. Asshole," she says, thumping me in the shoulder. Well, if that don't beat all. "Ethan, I already take orders from you in the field. You know I hate it so I give you shit which means I love it too; respect it, trust it when you stamp your authority on me. That is part of how we operate. Listen to me. You can't help your protective streak, you watch for the signs constantly to see which way I am going to go, reading my body, my face and my mind. I don't want it 24/7 but when you are in control, I feel safe, protected, loved. I trust you not to put me in danger." She steps back into me, lifting her face to mine as her arms stroke down my upper arms. " . You."

Trust her to break the tension and make me see what a prat I am. My hands find her waist pulling her in again. "Then woman, you better shut the fuck up and kiss me."

"Or what?"

"Or you will find yourself on the painful end of my palm." I smile down at her as she feigns defiance. "But then that is what you want isn't it baby?"

"Yes, but I just want it from you. Please don't walk out on me again. I don't want to go in deep and have someone else do this to me. Even if I could do what Isaac described and pretend to go into subspace. If I have to play this role then I would prefer it to be with you."

My heart is in my throat thinking of her with some other man. A battle is being waged internally between the poison of dominating her and the fury of some other lowlife pawing her. Not about to happen. If I am going to lose her anyway, then I do it on my terms. Not because I'm too much of coward to stand beside her while she puts her body on the line. And that thought becomes the clincher.

"You're not doing this without me." But when it is over, when she can no longer stand to be near me and I can't look at myself in the mirror, then will I be able to let her go? And didn't that just feel like a heat seeker in the chest. My country could then take a flying fuck at the moon for all I cared because there would be nothing for me here once she was gone.

She leans back and stares into my eyes. Something that she sees there makes her frown even though I am trying hard to paint a dose of happy across my features. It obviously isn't working but that will have to be worked out later too.

"Now, I am going to have to get my wheels moving. I have a party to organize. You are coming,aren't you? 7pm - don't be late."

With that she launches herself on her wooden plank of death back along the lakeside path. I didn't even get a chance to check how badly I marked her last night and I start feeling queasy again. I have this awful feeling that we are about to face the til-physical-intimidation-and-injury-do-us-part of our wedding vows that I had no idea existed. It is only as she disappears around the bend and out of sight that I realize I also haven't shared the text from Rory.

* * *

Two hours later I storm the entrance to the safehouse taking Rory and his staff by surprise. Shaking with barely suppressed rage I stand in the middle of the space. Rory is bent over the shoulder of one of his lackeys as they study video footage but he straightens up as he sees me.

"Kavanagh."

"Clear the room." The two agents, who look like some sort of cross between nerdy slapstick stereotypes and buttoned down frat boys, look from Rory to me with some uncertainty before Rory gives an almost imperceptible nod. They are up out of their seats, shuffling out of the room and disappearing quicker than a twinkie from a weightwatcher's meeting. The uncertainty in their body language is comical and I expect to see one slap the other upside the head on the way out for not reacting fast enough. However, my eyes haven't shifted from Rory's face and to his credit he isn't flinching much either.

"What do you want, Ethan?" The stillness of my body belies how furious I am. The second the messages started coming in last night I knew that they were about to pull resources but I thought Rory had bigger balls than to let that happen.

"Why have you stopped looking for the helicopter?" Right now Jason Taylor will have got a team out to the wreckage and any chance we had to check it over will be gone. So I know there isn't going to be a change in plans but it doesn't stop me from wanting to tear the prick apart for my own morbid pleasure.

"The order came from above." I take a step closer going for the chest pump. Any moment now my fist is going to connect with pretty boy's face and it will be a moment of great satisfaction.

"You didn't bother to mention this before you pulled the plug? Shit! You really didn't put up much of a fight with head office did you? You didn't give a crap about the fact that this is Mia's brother we are talking about and someone attached to our case might be trying to take him out."

"Don't be stupid, Agent Kavanagh. You know that when the order comes you don't ignore it."

"Bullshit. You fucking caved."

"I followed orders and you would have too. But just so you know I fought them for as long as I could. I tried to give our team enough time to get in and out of the area but since it was the middle of the night we had no hope of securing the site. So yeah, I pulled the team just before 4am because someone upstairs has developed a fucking conscience about spying on a US citizen on home soil. So I would suggest that you either throw that punch you are trying to hold back or piss off but stop wasting my fucking time." He turns back to the screen, a signal that our meeting is over.

"Does that mean that all the surveillance on GEH and Escala is over?"

"You heard me. They want us off Grey. We concentrate on anyone directly moving in the vicinity of the Primary Target and that isn't him."

"We weren't monitoring him because he was a risk, we were monitoring him because he is at risk. Nothing to my knowledge has changed. We still don't know what that connection is except for the coded data that Mia found almost three months ago and some dodgy ancient personal history. We can't leave the Grey's at the mercy of this moron."

"You're losing your objectivity, Kavanagh. I would have expected this from Mia which is why I have recommended she be removed as soon as we can get a replacement. Don't tell me that I have to replace you too."

The bomb goes off in my head. My need to smack the shit out of someone has overridden the need for a redundant discussion about replacement. The self-preservation filter has disintegrated in my over-wound brain and that fist seems to shoot out from my body of its own volition. The impact is a sickening thump as Rory's head snaps back and then he has me around the shoulders, upending me onto the floor and pinning my body down. Throwing my hips up I turn the tables and hold my forearm over his neck seriously choking him out before I come to my senses and release him. That is enough of an opening for him to toss my body back against the wall, jumping from his back to his feet and slamming one foot into my chest.

"I am going to forget that you did that, Kavanagh." He presses in harder just to make his point as I struggle to take a breath. I stare up at him taking in the look of disdain on his face. "You don't call the shots around here. And just because Mia is a Grey, that doesn't give you or her the right to commandeer the agency's resources for your own purposes."

Well, if that ain't enough to make a man see red. I grab his foot with both hands and twist, tumbling him at full force onto the ground as I return to my choke hold but with a little more heartfelt intent to do damage.

"We didn't ask for the Grey family to become targets and the agency has commandeered enough of Mia's life. I think her country owes her a little something, something. You feel me?"

His eyes don't leave mine for a full century and a half before he nods and chokes out an agreement. Just to be completely sure that we understand each other I give an extra lean on his neck before letting him up.

"Got that shit out of your system?" Hands on his knees Rory is putting some serious effort into breathing normally. I'm not traveling so light and easy myself and we keep our distance from each other.

"Not in the slightest." My words are a little ragged as they come out. He simply nods and looks away as he straightens up.

"We have a bigger issue. The feds are closing in again. If they shut this ring down we will lose any opportunity to locate the source."

"Jesus, can't someone just step in and negotiate an agreement? How hard can it be to get some cooperation?" Massaging the ache in my chest where Rory's size 14s left their mark is not relieving the pain. It'll be fun explaining that bruise to Mia.

"The traffic is increasing. The feds just want to close down the local crime rings and get the residual off shore. We need you two firmly entrenched if there is any chance to get a shot at our target. That trace that Mia managed to get into the server at Sirens has indicated that the right people have been circling waiting for the product. I'm stepping up your training. I don't want to take longer than six weeks to get you up to speed and through the membership process. Oh, and any doubt that you might have about your ability. Get that shit out of your head now. You don't have the luxury of carrying that around."

Giving Rory the satisfaction of watching the walls closing in on me is not going to happen today. This plan might have me shitting bricks but if he thinks for a moment that he is going in as my replacement then he better reevaluate, stat. If we are having the time frame shifted up yet again then I am going to be the one to watch Mia's back. She is meant to be an analyst not a fucking covert operative but she'll tear strips off me if I start pushing that angle with the bosses again.

"What's the plan?"

"The next ship to hit US waters arrives some time in July starting on the East Coast. Mackie has a team signing on as replacement crew in Cabo. We need you and Mia paired up through Orpheus and ticketed asap. That is going to take a few weeks maybe even months of cover work to set up. Once we get you on board you will only have three or four weeks before it cuts across the Bering Sea and crosses the dateline."

"So the Feds want to shut down the local operation?"

"Yeah, they want proof positive that intelligence is being moved through this channel. They're claiming human rights takes precedence and both the Directorate and the Presidential office are under pressure to let this one go."

"I'm not sure they're wrong." Everyone involved is aware that the longer this drags on the more victims will be caught up and potentially lost. "What are the Russian's saying?"

"They're struggling to keep up with the local organized crime orgs. As far as they are concerned intelligence movement is our problem. Look, the local crime ring is still our best bet but we need them to make a move so that we can keep negotiations open with the bureau. Right now their channels are so fucking squeaky clean you would wonder why we are tracking them."

"Just tell me one thing. How much is any of this going to taint Christian Grey?"

"Grey is a conduit, not the main game. It might be time to bring him and his connections into play."

"What about all this shit with Jack Hyde and Leila Williams? Are we any closer to working out that link?" The last thing we need is to be putting Christian and anyone close to him at more risk. Mia's role in all of this is going to be hard enough without having to watch her parents' backs. Christian I figure can look after himself. He has enough security since the Williams incident to secure a small nation.

"Williams is a furphy. The psychosis is coming up as genuine. Hyde is a loose cannon. He thinks he's a player but he's far removed from the action and the trouble is he's gone rogue. We still have no idea where he is after those twats lost him the other night. By the way, have you dealt with your sister?"

"Not yet. I'll be seeing her tonight." He gives me the kind of look designed to wither but I'll happily crap on his boots before I back down. "I said I'd deal."

"Just see you do. Now fuck off. Some of us have work to do." I turn on my heel and stalk out of the room sending Abbott and Costello back into the room. I hope they'll all be very happy together. As for me, I just want to get through tonight in one piece, preferably without Mia's family discovering that their girl has a secret life keeping the shit from descending on Casa Grey.


	16. Chapter 15: Distance

_**The sun is filling up the room, and I can hear you dreaming.  
Do you feel the way I do? Right now.  
I wish we would just give up, 'cause the best part is falling.  
Call it anything but love.  
And I will make sure to keep my distance.  
Say I love you when you're not listening.  
And how long can we keep this up, up, up?**_

_**Please don't stand so close to me; I'm having trouble breathing.**_  
_**I'm afraid of what you'll see right now.**_  
_**I give you everything I am, all my broken heartbeats, until I know you'll understand.**_  
_**And I will make sure to keep my distance.**_  
_**Say I love you when you're not listening.**_  
_**And how long can we keep this up, up, up?**_

_**And I keep waiting for you to take me.**_  
_**You keep waiting to save what we have.**_

_**So I'll make sure to keep my distance.**_  
_**Say I love you when you're not listening.**_  
_**And how long can we keep this up, up, up?**_

_**Make sure to keep my distance.!**_  
_**Say I love you when you're not listening.**_  
_**How long 'till we call this love, love, love?**_

_**Distance - Christina Perri**_

* * *

In my dreams I wake up in his arms, his body still wrapped around me and his loving whispers hanging in the air. In reality I wake up alone, no Ethan, no note, just a big old silent slap in the face. I know, I just know what is going through his head.

By the time I catch up with him I am torn between kissing him and hitting him. I don't need this. I don't need him to get an attack of conscience when there is nothing about last night that I wouldn't do a thousand times over again. Men can be so stupid. This one in particular. And stubborn. His desire to go all noble on my ass is just a little misplaced, especially when that is not what my ass is screaming out for. And when I am standing in front of him, seeing all of the doubt in his face, I have to stop my heart from breaking, because if this is not who he is, then where does that leave me?

By the time I get back to the house Mom is in full swing with arrangements for Christian's birthday and my opportunity to have a big old heart to heart with Dad goes flying out the window. The more time I spend with the men in my life, the more I see that their decisions are based on some ridiculous notion of protecting their women for their own good. And while this is a big shift in thinking for me I still can't reach that elusive justification. All I can think right now is God save me from anally retentive, over protective men. When will they all learn to protect when it is necessary but otherwise stay the fuck out of my way. Dad offers a few furtive looks as I travel at hurricane speed through the house, doing all the little chores that Mom has set out for me. After a while he gives up and hides himself back in his study. Perhaps this is as it should be. For now.

As afternoon approaches a truckload of flowers arrive with the instruction to place them in the boat house. The same boat house that looks like someone set off an orgy-bomb in it. The one that, with all the other things that have had to happen today, I haven't had a chance to clean up. When I phone Christian to check the arrangements in the vain hope that the boat house option was about storage and not a full on romantic tryst he balls me out about being obstructive. As the line goes dead I place my phone on the lawn in front of me and begin to manically jump and dance around it giving it the finger while I quietly and intensively use the in-out word translated into every language I speak - and a few that I don't. Gretchen is sweeping up the back patio and watching me with her head tilted to one side. Oh, who the hell cares what the hired help thinks.

After helping the florist to set up his miniature botanical garden in the boathouse, I make my way back to the main house where my mother commandeers my skills for more freaking flower arranging. Fighting every urge I have to euthanize the chrysanthemums I finally get a little down time an hour later to check my phone again. There is no word from Ethan which is unusual and quite frankly a little irritating. I feel like I have no choice but to give him space to process his feelings but the more time goes by the less hopeful I am.

At 5pm my mother makes me down tools and accompany her to Esclava for the requisite makeover during which some little barbie doll berates me for the state of my nails. She almost gets my raggedy finger inserted where the sun don't shine and I take great delight in escalating my level of sarcasm at her expense knowing damn well that she is too thick to realize I am taking the piss out of her. Elena, on the other hand does and she finally walks over and places a hand on my shoulder pinching the muscle as she smiles benignly, sending a very strong message to back off. I resist the urge to pick up a cuticle stick and impale her thigh with it.

When we return to the house there is just enough time to throw on a dress before descending to greet the first of the guests. Luckily Mom kept the whole evening down to a dull roar, not that we are well acquainted with many of Christian's friends anyway. Elliot has always been friendly and open with lots of great mates. By contrast Christian keeps his distance from everyone. I thank God for Mac and John Flynn, who have everyone relaxed and laughing in no time with their British humor. I watch my father carefully doing his lord of all he surveys routine and wonder if I have lost the best and only opportunity to find out why he kept me at arms length for all these years. When our eyes meet I see a little sadness and just a touch of fear. My mother remains oblivious to the undercurrent which means that he hasn't told her that their dirty little secret is about to rear its ugly head again. That is probably a good thing given how relieved we all are that yesterday didn't turn out any worse than it did. My personal history doesn't matter tonight. Tonight it is all about my brother and the joy of having him home safe and well.

Ethan arrives in a quiet and unassuming fashion at the same time as Kate and Elliot and I wonder if they have come together or is it just good timing on his part? Safety in numbers, perhaps? I wonder if he would be quite so hesitant if we could have had a normal dating history. The resentment sets in when I look at him not looking at me. Pretending that we don't know each other well enough to… Bugger that! I simply don't know how anyone, Mom and Dad included, would not have realized that he and I are together as of last night but just in case...

"Mom, you remember Kate's brother Ethan from last night." In all the furore of last night I am not sure that Ethan ever got introduced formally to my parents but that is not going to be an excuse now. "Ethan this my mom, Grace and my father, Carrick." Mom is effusive as ever but Dad bristles and Ethan looks painfully uncomfortable. I would love to believe that Dad's reaction is about no one being good enough for his little girl.

"Dr Trevelyan, Mr Grey, it is nice to meet you both under better circumstances tonight. Thank you for having me in your home." Could you sound any more like you have a broom handle inserted in your butt?

"Oh, Ethan, please, Grace and Carrick will do just fine and we are delighted to have a member of Kate's family here tonight." Shit! What? No, I'm not introducing him as Kate's, he's mine! MINE! "Gosh if I had thought about it earlier I would have invited Julie and Sam but this grew from an intimate family dinner to a full on celebration overnight so I must apologize for not including them."

"I wasn't aware that you knew my parents quite so well." Lies, all lies. And damn! I could have met Ethan's parents properly.

"Oh yes, Julie has a special place in my wardrobe and has for many years." Ethan chokes on his champagne at Mom's words. My mother is many things, elegant, social, graceful and refined. But get a couple of drinks in her and she develops verbal diarrhea. She giggles. "Gosh, I didn't mean…I just love getting into her clothes…I mean wearing her designs. Oh dear."

"Yes, we really must have a Grey and Kavanagh dinner soon." I join in hoping to seriously plant that little seed in my mother's head when I feel Ethan tense up. He smiles at my mother but when our eyes meet I see the daggers. What? At some point we are going to have to tell all of our nearest and dearest that they can stop trying to set us up on blind dates with their old college buddy's ' -success-story' kids.

Mom barrels on oblivious to the tension, "Ethan, thank you for your support last night. I apologize for not speaking to you properly then but…"

"Please, don't give it another thought. Everyone was under a great deal of stress last night. If I hadn't been so worried about Mia's state of mind when you called with the news I would never have come to Christian's apartment." He was worried?

"Are you two dating?" This stops the conversation rather abruptly in it's tracks. I mentally hear the metaphorical click-click of a loaded shotgun as he eyeballs Ethan. Dad has never worried too much about who I was seeing before. Of course, whenever I was home in Seattle I was 'dating' Sean who my mother adored and my father tolerated.

"Um, no sir. We have only just met although I did take Mia to lunch yesterday as a favor to Ana." You prick! You solid-gold asshole!

"Yes, Ethan's idea of lunch was consuming a sandwich while standing in the window of a deli." I smile and this time the urge to smack my ass is clearly written in his baby blues. Game on on buddy. "Oh, I didn't mean to be ungrateful. I appreciated the whole $6.50 including coffee that you spent. And it was fun, like being back in college…on a budget."

"I promise you that the next time I take you out you will know it is a real date." He touches my arm trailing down to take my hand with a smile. The type of smile that has my mother making gushing noises and my father coughing into his hand. The type of smile that gets me moist and wanting.

"What makes you think there will be a next time?" The smile is so painted on that it is cracking.

"Because I think you are the type of person who will give a guy a second chance. And now that I know you a little better I think you deserve my A game." His A game. Huh! Those hypnotic blue eyes pull me in as he lifts my hand and kisses it. I don't know how he does it but he just managed to deliver cheesy with side of genuine.

My parents look almost… approving. Just in the nick of time, Ana and Christian arrive causing enough of a distraction for Ethan to extricate himself. I go back to hostess duties while the guest of honor gets hustled off by Kate for reasons unknown. When I glance around Ethan has also disappeared which means he is doing the one thing I can't. Abandoning the guests and eavesdropping on my brother.

Finally Kate, Christian and Ana join the rest of us for once in his god forsaken, over-resourced, over-privileged, I-am-the-master-of-my-universe control-freakish life my brother is flabbergasted. The look on his face is classic but sad really. It's like he doesn't expect people to give a shit about him. I can't resist throwing my arms around him even though I know how much he hates physical contact. Suck it up, princess.

Then he does the one thing that no one would have expected in a million years. He announces his engagement to Miss Anastasia Rose Steele. Of course, not in the way that a normal person would. No, 'guess what, we are getting hitched' or 'we thought we would get married' or 'I asked and bugger me if she didn't say yes'. No, with 19th century Christian Grey we get the highly formal, olive pit in mouth experience of 'Anastasia has consented to be my wife'.

You could just about hear a pin drop. First of all there are the immediate family who are just stunned but delighted. How could we not be happy? Ana is perfect for him, we just didn't think that he would see it quite so quickly. Next are the slightly bemused but thrilled friends who think they all know him well but apart from John Flynn, who ever really knows Christian at all? The best though are the almost-rans. The ones who thought they might have had some chance with the great Christian Grey if they just stuck around long enough. My best friend Lily and Gretchen the housekeeper are exclusive members of this club although at any other gathering there are usually a cast of thousands that fit the category. Finally there is Elena. In a class of her own, looking like she has just swallowed a lemon…whole…and is about to bring it back up again while simultaneously corroding steel with her acid. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so evident that World War 3 is about to start and we had all best run for cover.

After a little conversation and food Ethan makes his way over to where I am pretending to console Lily.

"Oh, Lily, you remember Ethan Kavanagh, don't you?" As I remember it, Lily lusted after Ethan as much as any of us when he turned up at that summer pool party. She never knew that he found me in the garden that day. I don't know why I didn't tell her straight away but I was glad that I didn't.

"Hi Lily. How are you?" I know first hand that Ethan would rather chew his own shoe than engage in conversation with Lily, the man-eater. This type of selfless behavior, the fact that he would approach me while I am talking with her, tells me how much he loves me. However, it's Lily's response that convinces me definitively that she and I will never be close again.

Her hand goes to his shoulder and she presses up against his side with a come-hither smile. "Ethan, darling. When did you get back into town? You promised to call me, we have a lot of catching up to do." I will kill her. Bare hands, no marks, lots of blood.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to catch up with Joel. Is he around at the moment?" Ethan tries to disengage by stepping closer to me but Lily just follows. Stupid bitch.

"Sweetie, Joel is firmly entrenched in the London office. But listen you and I have some lost time to make up. Why don't you come out on the boat next weekend? My parents would love to see you." Was that a finger under his chin? Seriously? Ethan grabs her hand and pushes her away then steps into my body, mirroring her actions while looking at my face.

"Sounds great. I'll ask my girlfriend if she wants to go." Boat - $700,000, outfit for boat - $750, look on Lily-bitch's face right now - priceless.

"Oh, darling. I didn't realize that you were seeing someone. Who is she? Do I know her?" I can see the hamster running around in the wheel of Lily's brain as she tries to work out a way to uninvite Ethan's fictional girlfriend. This is so much fun. And yes, she really is this stupid.

"You might." Ethan gives me a very pointed smile and Lily's jaw drops down to her knee caps as she finally registers his meaning.

"Oh. My. God." At that point it seems that Lily is going to scream her disapproval across the not-quite-crowded-enough-for-that-sort-of-shit room. I quickly clamp my hand over her mouth and drag her physically into a corner out of sight. Ethan follows-shit stirrer.

"Don't say a word, Lily. We've only just started seeing each other and none of our family really know so we would appreciate it if keep your trap shut long enough for us to work out what this is." She nods and I un-clamp my hand from her mouth. Lily has the good sense to wear lipstick that doesn't smudge or wear. Probably so that she doesn't leave evidence of blow jobs on married men's cocks, however, it is the little things that make me grateful right now.

"Wow, so you and Ethan? Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled." Bullshit! "I just never thought you two would have anything in common. I mean, Ethan is so studious and serious and you, well you're…" I am waiting for dumb, flighty, a couple of shoulder pads short of a blonde. Lily doesn't have the lady-balls to say that to my face. As far as she knows, I got kicked out of our very exclusive high school and had to attend the local public school where I did useful subjects for the happy homemaker like home ec and family math. She never knew about WSU or my scholarship and I was happy to keep it that way since she has a mouth like a leaky sieve. God knows why or how we managed to stay friends until now. There are things about Lily that I do love but the competition, real or imagined, around school and boys are not two of them.

Ethan wraps an arm around my waist and steps in closer. "Mia has hidden depths, Lily. I'm discovering new and exciting things about her every day. I'm looking forward to spending more time really getting to know her." He nuzzles his nose into my neck and inhales, sending a tingle down my spine. Then he turns his head and looks at her with a big I've-won-the-lottery grin telegraphing that I'm a sure thing. The fact that I am just serves to piss me off further and I hold back from grinding my heel into his foot to let him know to back off a bit. "Now would you ladies like your drinks refreshed?"

Lily giggles and hands her glass to him. "You know Ethan, Mia has a reputation of being a little fast. Are you sure you can handle her?" I throw back the half glass of champagne I have been diligently nursing and wonder if tonight isn't the night where I get completely hammered for the first time in my life. Ethan doesn't know it yet but he has just thrown down the gauntlet to her. Lily will now concentrate every bit of her finely honed boyfriend/husband-stealing skill into trying to prise Ethan away from me.

"Oh, Lily. I'm pretty sure I could handle anything she wants to throw my way. Now I'll give you girls a moment to talk about me." Prick! Ethan has all but just flirted with her! He takes our glasses and wanders away which is a good thing. He should move faster before I plant the heel of my Manolo's in his butt. My inner bitch steps back, hands raised and says, 'hey, you're on your own buddy!' but I know I can't do that to him.

"God, he's so cute, Mia. I had forgotten just how cute he is. When he dumps you, you don't mind if I take a shot at him do you? For old times' sake?" Oh, I am so gonna hit you bitch! Time to turn the tables on her and teach my errant husband a lesson.

"Come on, Lily. You know that I attract them." I put my hand across my mouth and whisper conspiratorially. "Just between you and me and the garden fence, Ethan is another Sean." She looks at me a little confused for a second and then her eyes widen with shocked understanding.

"You mean he…?"

I simply nod my head and mouth the word 'gay' as Ethan wanders back over with our drinks. His eyes widen as I shrug my shoulders. You're on your own now buddy. Lily, who would never let a little thing like sexual preference stop her, is making it very clear that she still wants Ethan. She probably thinks if she puts some serious effort in she can get most good-looking gay men to turn. Much to his horror I leave them to it. I don't believe for a moment that Ethan would cheat on me but I am going to sit back and enjoy watching him squirm now.

Heading to the bar I decide it might be time for one of Dad's patented lemon martini's. If I'm going to make myself puke with excess alcohol tonight then I might as well choose something that tastes remarkably similar coming back up as it does going down. Remembering that I still have a job to do I focus my attention on Ana approaching her with a glass of the concoction voted 'guaranteed to have you dancing on tables and drunk dialing ex-boyfriends' and drill her about Ethan. She fobs me off to Kate which is the sensible best friend thing to do but doesn't help me to get to know her any better. Kate, quite frankly, scares the crap out of me and I don't think I have it in me to have that particular heart to heart. I might need another couple of the lemony truth-extractors before I tackle any 'tell me about your brother' conversations. Then I hear it.

Ana and Elena are going for it in the formal dining room. Shit! I get as close as I can to the action without catching anyone's attention until Christian pushes past me to go and rescue his girl. Ana has already thrown her drink over Elena and now my darling brother has just helped to toss a large portion of my drink over me, in his desperation to stop his ex-mistress from obliterating his new fiancée. Jesus, save me from over-protective heroes on a mission. As I try to brush myself off Ethan wanders over with a wet cloth and quietly hands it to me.

"Gay? You told Lily you thought I was gay?" I pause my scrubbing for a moment trying not to look smug.

"Well, we don't want her gunning for you now, do we? Seemed like the best way to keep her claws off you." I have just about sponged the worst of the mess off the bodice of my dress but I have a feeling that the residual water mark will never go away. "Damn, I liked this dress."

"And did you really think that was going to stop heat-seeker Lily from launching a full on attack. Why couldn't you just say we were happy, falling in love, getting serious about each other?" Oh, why do you think Ethan? You consistently tell me that we have to play it cool and tonight you decide,first with my parents and then with Lily, that we are the next big item? You're giving me whiplash!

"You think that would stop her either? Lily has had more married men than I've had hot dinners. You would have been a challenge in a whole different way. Look, she's the least of our worries right now…" Just at that moment we hear Christian's voice raising as he accuses Elena of having never loved him and the next thing I know my mother is bursting in on the happy little scene. Holy cluster-fuck, Batman!

Since the 'get the hell away from my son' is rather loud, it likely that anyone within listening range of the door right now can get the general gist that the bitch-troll slept with my brother at some point and my mother is now discovering what a bitch Elena is. I sneak a peek at Lily, who thank goodness is out of hearing range, as all of this goes down. Seems my mom and I share a terrible taste in best-friends.

"Listen, this is gonna get worse before it gets better. How about you and I go about making sure that none of the other guests get a look in on this conversation?" I look at Ethan, once more grateful for his unwavering support and his common sense in a crisis. We turn and head to the back of the house, picking up full champagne bottles as we go so we can circulate and keep everyone else drinking. I keep taking anxious looks at the door and notice when other family members start to filter back into the room.

My mother looks a combination of shell-shocked and a whole load of seriously pissed. I can't blame her. Recognizing her need for the drink-of-denial-and-lost-memory, I make up a fresh batch or martinis with the intention of plying her with them but she takes herself out to the kitchen and opens a bottle of wine. Ethan stays close to her so that he can keep her distracted and after a round or two of 'so what are going to do with the rest of your life?' questions I move off to check the rest of the party.

Now seems to be a good time to approach Kate with two fresh glasses of lemony poison. I don't know why 'now' but if the buzz in my head is anything to go by, then I am sure it is martini madness! To my surprise she is really welcoming and I hand her a glass which Elliot swipes and downs in one gulp. WTF, dude? You don't even like this shit!

"So tell me about your brother. Is he seeing anyone?" Somehow, I think I may have just skipped small talk. I just can't quite focus enough to remember right now.

"God, Ethan hasn't let me into the inner workings of his love life for years. He never seems to be short on company but I don't think there is anyone serious." Oh, that's disappointing. No! Wait! That's good right? Maybe she can help me out with his mood swings.

"Oh. Do you have any advice on how to get his attention? I thought he really liked me but he's giving me mixed messages." I'm all but batting my eyelids and pouting. Or at least I think I am. Maybe I'm about to be sick. I pour all my effort into concentrating on her answer while taking deep breaths. Very deep breaths. She smiles at me as if she recognizes something in me. What? What can she see?

"You know, you could try being yourself. He's a smart guy, I am sure that he is most likely to be interested in your mind." Shit, she's smarter than I thought. At this point Elliot stands up and goes off to the kitchen. I watch him go before I lean over and touch her arm.

"Kate, I haven't been myself in eight years." Oh, I'm pretty sure the room is moving now. Once I get it back under control I put on a sad pout. "I think he's interested in my friend Lily." Kate looks over at Lily who is desperately trying to latch on to Claude Bastille with a simpering giggle. Kate hurrumphs. Yep, it was definitely a hurrumph.

"First of all, with all due respect to your friend Lily, Ethan will never be interested in someone like her. He wouldn't have the patience." Ohh, good save, Kate. "Second, I'm not sure that someone didn't break his heart a long time ago. I don't think he has ever really gotten over it." Holy mother of secret romances! How close to the truth could she possibly get? I need to change the subject. For the next twenty minutes we discuss clothes and parties and mutual acquaintances. The thing is that Kate is not vacuous so she doesn't hold back about people she has no time for and I am so far gone that I've become an open book. With no barriers or bullshit we connect in a way that I could never have predicted. In fact, the more she talks the more I see the intelligence and intensity that Elliot has fallen in love with. She is perfect for him and I fall a little in love with her myself. In spite of my inebriated state, I think my new sister-in-law is going to become my new bff. Just as long as I can hold back from slurring out an 'I love you'.

Mom, in the spirit of the ultimate party hostess cries out 'Karaoke!' Trying not to reflect the oh-shit in my eyes I stumble to my feet and hustle her into the family room where we turn on the big screen. A few other people join us, including Rhian Flynn and Mac who do a belting version of 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' that has us all clapping and dancing. Meanwhile Lily has both Ethan and Claude bailed up in a corner as she simultaneously strokes whatever body part she can get hold of along with their egos. The bitterness I feel while I put on my happy dance makes me feel small and petty. By this stage I have lost any desire to keep control and when Dad fronts up with another pitcher of death by martini I am the first to hold out my glass.

So it is, that with unreasonable amounts of alcohol flowing through my body, that I barely register Christian and Ana going to the boat house for the big proposal scene after most of the guests have gone. If I had been a little more sober, if Ethan had not felt compelled to stay with me while I sank into oblivion, then we might have been around when Jack Hyde attacked his sister in the garden of one of the nicest Bellevue mansions in Seattle. I might have been able to help my brother get her to the hospital faster. I just might have been able to put all my years of training to some good fucking use instead of having my head down a toilet all night hurling up my own self indulgence. At the very least Ethan might not have been so distracted by watching his secret wife on a trajectory called self-destruct as she drove the porcelain bus and he might have been more focused on the job that we were actually employed to do. Keep our family safe from the threat posed by Linc Lincoln and his minions.

As it is Ethan doesn't hear about Kate's miscarriage until the following day when Elliot's friend TJ brings her back to the apartment. He calls me in shock after she tells him that she and Elliot have broken up. Two days later Elliot goes into meltdown and begs Kate's parents for help. All the while I sit and watch through surveillance cameras as my oldest brother quietly falls apart, unable to do a sodding thing to help him without blowing my cover. Thankfully, one of the people he can confide in is my husband. I don't think I have ever felt so completely redundant. It breaks my heart to think of all the times that Elliot has been the one to rescue me, to be there for me and yet he continues to think that I love Christian more than him. Right now, I would give anything to be the one to hold him while he grieves over his lost child.


	17. Ch 16 Lay Your World On Me

**_A/N: Sorry for the slow updates but I do actually have another chapter up my sleeve that might see the light of day in the next week. If you are sticking with the stories, thanks. I feel awful for losing momentum and I am looking forward to November when time might become more manageable. In the meantime, this slow drip feed might cause some of you to jump off, I understand that. I promise that in one way or another I will finish these stories. One day. :) - Thanks to my lovely beta, Spooky, who tried to look at this at about 2am his time. If there are mistakes blame me, not him. Sasha xx_**

* * *

**_Don't let it twist you up inside  
Time never fails to make the heartache stop  
You've got to let those feelings go  
I'll give you everything I can if you say the word_**

Give me your pain  
Give me your anger  
Let me be your rock  
I can be the pillar of strength that you need  
I'll help you keep it all together  
It's better late than never  
Lay your world on me  
I can take the weight

**_Ozzy Osborne - Lay Your World On Me_**

* * *

****_Psyche Evaluation, Virginia 2009_

_ "Ethan, tell me what sort of childhood did you have?" He considers fudging his answers. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to skew the data but he knows it would be pointless. Face to face, these guys are experts, especially Dr Celia Marinovich. She can spot bullshit at a hundred paces._

_ "Difficult but no worse than many children." An honest answer that gives nothing away._

_"Come along, Ethan, you've got a chip on your shoulder a mile wide."_

_"You made me give up the only woman I will ever love. I think I have reason."_

_"Mia was only a girl. She would have tired of you sooner or later."_

_He holds back his retort, pausing just long enough to make her shuffle in her seat. "If you believe that then you don't know her at all. God help the poor bastard that ends up supervising her in the field because you lot don't have the first clue as to what makes her tick as a woman or as an agent."_

_"Well, perhaps you can enlighten us sometime. In the meantime, answer the question."_

_"Sorry, what were we talking about?" He'd love to take her down a peg but if the rumors were true, she was about to head up his department and he couldn't afford to be on the back foot with her._

_"Your childhood." As painful as it was, he was going to have to go there._

_"I was bullied. It was shit. I changed. It stopped. End of story." Knowing he was antagonising her and being able to stop were turning out to be two different ends of his spectrum at the moment. They were engaged in a psychological stand-off and for the sake of his future position with the firm he decided it was time to throw her a bone. _

"_When we were kids our parents moved us from one side of the country to the other. From Maryland to Seattle, away from family and friends, to Dad's bright new future and our uncertainty." And here comes the question…and how did that make you feel? Only she didn't. _

_"I don't understand the move. Your grandfather owned half the media outlets on the East Coast that were outside New York. Why the move?"_

_As an adult he could see that his father needed to break from his grandfather's empire and build his own. But at the age of 9 his world came to an end._ _"My father and grandfather didn't always see eye to eye. When the chance came to expand to the West Coast my Dad took it."_

"_But it didn't make you happy?" Oh, it was just a box of birds!_

_"I was a tubby kid who was hopeless at team sports and buried his head in books. I spent a year having my head shoved in a toilet and another three not getting to eat my lunch each day. The ultimate humiliation came at thirteen, when my little sister stood up to my tormentors calling them names that they would have to go home and look up in a dictionary. She was ten years old and precocious. She was my hero."_

_For those first few years, when life was hell and the future seemed too far away to contemplate, they were a tight unit. They invented their own games and became a solid team of two. So much so, that their parents were often distraught that they couldn't reward or punish either one of them without including the other._

_"Your parents had no idea what was going on?" _

_"No. My father was hardly present in our lives at that time. My mother had her own challenges."_

_"She was trying to save the marriage?" His father's affair was in his file. Obviously without the shit that actually went down between his mother and his father's mistress but certainly with the car accident that resulted in a hospital stay for Kate and his mother. _

_"She was trying to forgive him and herself. She wasn't exactly coping in that time. I am sure that my mother raced back into her design business to get away from us and to get some control over her life."_

_"Why do you think she wanted to get away from you?"_

_"Guilt."_

_"The car accident?"_

_"Yes. But we used to tag team her, too. Just for the sheer hell of it. When Kate refused to do her homework, I would join in with her campaign against the teachers even though it would make me feel ill not to be compliant and studious. When I came home with another shirt ripped, sporting another bruise, Kate would play nurse maid, even though she quite often had gained a scrape or two of her own by leaping to my defense. As teens, we fought in that way that siblings do, but when a crisis hit, Team Kavanagh would present a united front."_

_"Your mother found this behavior challenging?"_

_"At one stage, my mother found life challenging. My sister and I, we had each others backs. We'd unite first and fight about it later."_

_"Yet, you say your parents have a happy marriage now. What changed for your parents?"_

_"Dad was admitted to hospital during one of Mom's buying trips. She was in London and he was undergoing a raft of tests in the cardiology unit. Kate and I were inseparable, making sure that Dad had everything he needed, that he was visited and reassuring Mom that she didn't need to rush home. She did anyway and I guess the shock of almost losing him helped her to forgive even if she couldn't forget."_

_"So this tag team with your sister, Kate. This could be a good thing?"_

_"We were there for each other. Always. When our dog Jake died after ten years of devotion, I made sure that Kate never arrived home to an empty house and she joined me on my morning run taking Jake's place at my side."_

_He had seen her through every disagreement and heartache, she had helped him get in shape and become more socially acceptable. She was always strong and socially competent. He always knew the right thing to say to ease her crippling self-doubt. She was his best friend and he was hers, even though they would never admit it each other. _

_"So you would do anything for her?"_

_"Anything."_

* * *

Seattle 2011

WTF! Kate arrives back at the apartment on Sunday night and I know I am looking at the shell where my once vivacious partner-in-crime had been. She looks like crap. No, she is actually making crap look attractive.

The shell shuffles straight past me with TJ in tow as she heads to her room. TJ looks like a spare prick at a wedding when she shuts the door in his face, leaving him standing in the hall with her bag in his hand.

"What the fuck happened?" He jumps at the sound of my voice in the enclosed space and if I'm not mistaken, he may have just squealed like a pig. Looking around he can see that he has to get past me to get out of the apartment and he looks scared shitless.

"I-I-I'm not entirely sure. Kate asked me to bring her home and Elliot didn't argue so I figure that whatever happened last night involved a fight." TJ has developed a case of verbal diarrhea, shitting out words like he's shelling peas. Perhaps not so shitless after all.

I turn his words over in my head trying to make sense of his outburst. No, if this was a fight she would be spitting-tacks angry not broken. The only explanation is … "Was she at the Treehouse last night?" TJ shakes his head.

"I figured they must have stayed here or out at Bellevue. They didn't arrive back until late this afternoon. They both looked wrecked, like they had really tied one on last night. Must have been one hell of a party." Judging by how hungover Mia was this morning, you would think that it had been more like a keg party than a family birthday, but the only ones that would have been feeling worse for wear are Mia and Grace. As for Kate I know that she didn't touch a drop and Elliot had kept things pretty tight himself.

"What do you want me to do with this?" He holds out the overnight bag to me. I reach out and take it off his hands.

"Thanks, man. I'll give it to her."

After TJ leaves I make tea and trot down the hall to knock on her door. I don't wait for her to answer, if it pisses her off as much as it used to when we were kids then that might be a good thing.

"Tea?" The room is dark. All I can see is her silhouette lying on the bed. When I approach I hear the quiet sobbing. I place the cups on the side table, slide into sit against the headboard and gather her up into my arms. "Hey, baby girl, what's going on?"

She clings to me as her heart shatters taking mine with it. Kate is normally so under control, taking every heartache in her stride. This is more than a misunderstanding with Elliot but sitting here waiting for her to open up is more than a man can take.

"Did you fight with Elliot?" She pulls back shaking her head as I pass her a wad of tissues. Time to go into my mind-reading act. Fucking sucks to be me.

"Katie, were you at the hospital last night?" Her whole body tenses up then she collapses into mournful sobs. I pull her in close, my shirt getting more and more damp with every shudder of her shoulders. I simply let her go for it, shedding a silent tear or two of my own. "Baby girl, I'm so sorry. So very sorry."

The tea goes cold, which is fine by me. Eventually, I get her to lie down and sleep while I hold her. It takes hours of silent tears but I feel her breathing change not long before dawn. She hasn't spoken a word. I let myself out of the room and retreat to my own for a few hours of sleep. Less than two hours later I hear her banging around in the bathroom. When she emerges she looks like death but I have coffee ready knowing that whatever she thinks she is going to do today will not be put off by me telling her she looks like shit.

Instead I get dressed and drive her across to the Kavanagh Media building dropping her outside the front before finding a car park and heading upstairs to for an unscheduled meeting with my father.

"Ethan Kavanagh. How wonderful to see you. Is he expecting you?" My father is the ruler of his domain in every sense of the word but he's no match for his PA, Carol, a woman of advanced years, expansive girth and bulldog tendencies when it comes to guarding the boss.

"No, mam, but I was hoping that you might be able to find a space for me to grab a few minutes of his time." My 'butter wouldn't melt in my mouth' smile won't sway her but I'm ever hopeful the serious soulful eye approach might work. She crumbles.

"He has a few minutes now before the board meeting but it will cost you." She taps her cheek expectedly.

"You're an angel Carol but your secret's safe with me." I plant the requisite kiss on her wrinkled cheek, ever thankful that my father hasn't replaced her with a younger, leggier model. She ushers me into the inner sanctum where my father is scanning through news stories on a bank of monitors.

"Ethan, what can I do for you son?" The father who was never around in my youth has no qualms about stopping his current activities to talk with me now. He always makes me laugh when he makes claims for having brought us up when we all know that Mum pretty much did that on her own. Selective memory is a beautiful thing.

"Hey, Dad. I just dropped Kate downstairs. Thought I would come up and say hi." He looks a little skeptical. "Are you going to see her for lunch today?"

"I thought I would wait at least a week. She doesn't need her old man stepping into her newly acquired territory. Especially when he is the boss." He walks over to the executive bathroom and straightens his tie in the mirror. His hands pause when he catches my eye over his shoulder. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know the details but she isn't in good shape." Understatement.

"Lover's tiff?" I shake my head, although Elliot's absence last night might mean more than I want it to. He's on my shit list if I find out he has done anything stupid to hurt Kate. Trouble is my singularly-focused sister can be pretty damn flaky when it comes to running the gamut of unpredictable emotions. Poor bastard, there will be days when he won't be able to tie his shoelaces the right way for Princess Happy. Dad breaks into that thought stream with a sledgehammer. "Don't tell me that fucker, Jack Hyde has gotten to her."

Connecting the dots is why my Dad earns the big bucks. This is perhaps my biggest fear but Kate hasn't confirmed that Hyde has been anywhere near her. "I'm not sure but you might want to find someone who can keep an eye on her." It's not my place to tell him about the baby but now he has planted the seed I feel the need to find out if we have located Jack Hyde.

Less than an hour and a cup of coffee later I phone the safe house.

"Jensen. What's the current intel on Jack Hyde?"

"Feds located his vehicle at the home of Elizabeth Morgan, HR Manager for SIP, late yesterday afternoon."

_Fuck! and you didn't think to share that with us?_ My slight reservations about Rory Jensen have just grown to active dislike and mistrust.

"Is he still there now?" There is a pause. _Well, that would be a 'yes'._

_"_Kavanagh. I want you to come in. You've got training to do. Agent Grey has got two hours on you already." Well, you can get fucked…Sir, and Mia will understand. I cut him off and locate Elizabeth Morgan's address with a phone call to SIP and some fairly cheesy chat up lines to the receptionist. I spend the rest of the afternoon casing her house but Hyde is nowhere to be seen.

I make sure I am back in the city in time to pick Kate up from her first day at work and I take her out for quick meal at a Tappas Bar not far from the apartment. After I have watched her push the food around her plate for 10 minutes I decide I can't take the silence any more.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" I'm sipping a beer while she drinks nothing more than water. Shuffling in her seat to avoid my question causes her to wince. "Come on, I need to get you home and back to bed."

"I'm alright, Ethan." If I could see even one hint of the old defiance in her eyes I might have hesitated but this is a broken and battered Kate. Shit! "Did he hit you?"

"What?" She looks momentarily confused. "No! Elliot would never do that!" Jerking her body upright to defend her man has her gripping her side, not her stomach.

"Don't shit me, Kate. You're hurting in all the wrong places for this to be just about losing the baby."

"What the hell would you know, Ethan?" She struggles to stand up before stalking out of the restaurant. I throw some cash on the table and race out after her.

"Kate, wait!" I catch her just as she gets to the end of the restaurant block. I know I shouldn't grab her but I need to know how bad this is. Swinging her around to face me causes her to cry out in pain. "Your upper body? Do you have bruised ribs?"

Her head is lifted, eyelids closed as the tears tumble down in large drops. I pull her toward me, careful not to hug too hard.

"The baby?" My question causes her to collapse against me in shudders. "Who hurt you, Kate? Was it Jack Hyde?"

A fresh round of sobbing starts with a nod of her head. Oh, Christ! Hyde is a dead man.

* * *

The next day I am back outside Morgan's house when my phone rings. I glance at the screen. Jensen. "Kavanagh, where are you? You've missed another training session."

"I'm working the case…Sir." Sipping my luke warm coffee, I never let my eyes leave the property.

"Bullshit, Ethan. You're sitting outside Elizabeth Morgan's house. Get the fuck away from there. I already have a surveillance team there as do the feds. If they catch you there this case will be blown."

"Yeah, well. They have to catch me first."

"Listen to me. Get your ass back to the safe house now."

"No can do, Sir?"

"That wasn't a request. It was an order, Agent Kavanagh. You will not blow this case on some personal vigilante bullshit."

It takes a moment for his words to sink in before I scream out of the street heading back to the Seattle CBD. Within half an hour I am standing in front of my boss contemplating the ways in which his head will leave his body.

"You motherfucking bastard! You knew what he did! Did you have a surveillance team stand there while he beat the crap out of my sister?" Both hands go to his chest as I shove him backwards across the cramped surveillance room. He stumbles for a second before he faces off at me again. Then he sighs.

"We picked him up coming back to Seattle three days earlier. Our Escala agent saw him make his way up to the helipad while it was unsecured. He tampered with Grey's chopper and then left the building. The agent followed him on foot to a cafe near SIP where he met up with Morgan. They left together in her car. By the time the agent reported in and got a car they were long gone. We immediately set up a team outside her house."

"You asshole! You knew the chopper had been tampered with and you did nothing?"

"No, we suspected and we tried to get a team up there to undo the damage. They were interrupted but had done enough of a fix that Grey was able to land."

"Jesus Christ. You're really going to claim that? You could have just come clean and told Christian not to fly the damn thing."

"We were going to make another attempt. We had no way of knowing he was going to take it up the next day. Our satellites had him the whole way anyway and we sent that truck in to pick them up once they reached the road." It would have taken nothing to monitor Christian's flight plan traffic and stop him from flying. As for letting the President and VP of one of the largest companies on the Western seaboard stagger around in the wilderness for five hours? There is a special place in hell for people like Rory Jensen.

"Does Mia know any of this? The way you're playing with her brother's life? Jesus Christ, how many violations are we willing to commit to get to the bigger prize. Are Christian and Kate just collateral damage to you, asshole!?"

"Jesus, Ethan. You know that we are trying to work around the FBI operation. We're a sleeper group, this is what we do. Fuck, I didn't make the rules."

"WHAT FUCKING RULES?" He doesn't look away, breaths coming hard and fast. He isn't comfortable with any of this. They've had Mia effectively in deep cover for fucking years, they just never bothered to tell her. The sooner we get away from the agency, the better.

"We can't just leap in and intervene at every turn. We have to let some of this play out."

"Fuck, playing it out! That was my sister and Mia's brother, you prick!" He barely flinches. Less than a flicker of his eyelids.

"You said you would deal with your sister, Agent Kavanagh. As to Mr Grey, the Director feels it is time that we brought him in." He kind of has me there. I said I would speak to her about backing off but with everything that happened over the weekend, there hasn't been time. As if I don't feel completely sick that I didn't keep her safe but then how was I supposed to know Hyde would attack her in the grounds of Bellevue.

"I should have been told that Hyde had surfaced."

"You were too fucking busy hurling accusations at me for pulling our resources off the search for Grey's chopper. We knew where he was, we would have had a team there in less than an hour but you and I both know that there is a much bigger picture that means we have to protect the integrity of this case. Shit, sending in the rescue truck was a massive risk. If any of Grey's security team had got on to that they would have pulled Escala apart and found our surveillance." All I can do is place my hands on the table in an effort not to fall flat on my face. When he speaks again he lowers to a more conciliatory tone. "Look, Ethan, I'm sorry about your sister. Hyde was too fast for our guys to step in."

"Where is he now?"

"I can't tell you that."

"DON'T! DON'T FUCKING STONEWALL ME! Where the FUCK is he now, Jensen?"

"You are not going after him alone. He is not even our target. You've got to let the feds deal." My anger is only one table-shove away from psychotic. I step back, jaw clenched, fists ready to punch someone's… anyone's lights out. I back towards the door a couple of steps before turning to step through it. Rory moves quickly to get between me and the door. "Don't do this, Ethan. I don't want to have to restrain you."

Until this moment my eyes have been focused on the exit but now I slowly raise them to meet his. "Then get out of my way. That prick is mine."


End file.
